


How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs

by thoughtfullyyoungduck



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eddie's married to Myra, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mentions of Richie's mom and how he feels about her passing, Pining, Richie has his own herb garden, Slow Burn, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, and Eddie needs herbs, at first, but not for long, but nothing graphic at all, there's a fire but no one gets hurt, with a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26586373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtfullyyoungduck/pseuds/thoughtfullyyoungduck
Summary: The way he’s positioned, back turned towards the majority of the crowd, head ducked in an uncomfortable position to stare at his phone without actually typing or scrolling down, says enough that the guy just wants to be left alone. Richie can’t wait to go talk to him and annoy the living shit out of him.----Richie has his own little herb garden that he maintains every Saturday. One day, he meets Eddie there. The two fall in love.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57





	How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this thing for three months so I hope whoever's reading this enjoys it! Please let me know what you think of it!

Richie Tozier is a man of many faces. He has layers, depth to his otherwise stereotypical portrayal of a gay man pretending to be straight, a job he takes on seriously still, even after coming out during a performance that was his breakthrough in the world of the famous. He’s a part time annoying piece of shit his friend can barely stand, and a full time comedian. Some say he made it to the top already, others say he’s well on his way, and the flimsy tabloids who mostly report on affairs and divorces claim he’s an abomination to the comedy scene, single handily ruing the whole reputation comedy built for itself.

Richie takes it all in stride, still posing for paparazzi pictures after he leaves an haute cuisine restaurant with his supposed fling, the gossip juicier now his supposed hookups are male.

‘Sex sells’, his manager once told him one night over drinks, ‘and so do secrets. Combine the two of them and, well, be prepared to see your face on every major cover for a long time.’

He’s in part a person that drinks and snacks too much for it be completely healthy, and part someone who observes and uncovers secrets weighing on the backs of his friends without them speaking up about it, and looks out for them, for example by making them eat and drink vegetables or smoothies.

The table at his apartment is jampacked with empty containers of take away, yet he cooks any time he has guest over and does it well, meat cooked to a T, the flesh still tender but without any blood seeping through, the way he prefers it, and self-made gratin or fries topped off with a gravy to die for. Or so his guest say, Richie himself isn’t entirely convinced they aren’t just appeasing him. The danger that comes with the territory of a man hunkering for praise but cowering away any time he receives it.

The point is, Richie is not one thing, but because he’s a public figure, people often feel like they know who he is. Usually descriptions of him include him as a loud mouth without any insecurities, haha imagine that, who drinks throughout day and night and is a slob. When you say the name Richie Tozier, you don’t associate it with a garden center every Saturday, or him maintaining a herb garden there any spare time he has. They don’t do that, but it is what Richie participates in every Saturday he’s not on tour, to a fault.

His sister, Victoria, owns said garden center and it’s her pride and joy. Besides her son, Dylan, there’s nothing so precious to her, and the fact that she grants Richie access to the entire store, keys to enter and leave as he chooses, proves just how careful Richie is with his responsibilities. He can be a menace, butting in with unwanted comments and making fun of things that are a little sensitive and cause havoc in the most obscure places, but when the people he loves are involved, he knows better than to play around. It helps that his sister is an equal loudmouth like him, a passionate; I’ll say what’s on my mind type of person, and she might skin him alive if he so much displaces a flower pot.

The allotment he grows his plants on is ten x ten square feet, and each specific type of herb is separated neatly in a tiny space in the box, divided in four by bouts of wooden planks so they don’t cross over in another territory. That’s mostly a problem with the mint he harvests, as mint tends to invade and overgrow so vastly Richie periodically trim the stems every Saturday. Other than mint, he also garners rosemary, French tarragon and Dill.

All four need a different approach to garden and Richie would be lying if he said he hasn’t messed up a thousand times before, plundering what little income they receive from selling the time consuming plants under the bemused glance of Vicky. She sells them in her shop, and whatever doesn’t get picked up, they spilt between the two of them to take home.

It’s not a goldmine of money, but that’s not why he picked up the hobby in the first place, and his sister is simply pleased the two of them are in each other’s proximity, albeit silently. In addition, any amount of income extra is a win her books.

Granted, herbs on their own don’t sell for much, and if Richie started planting vegetables or fruit they would lose their quantities much faster, but those don’t have the same emotional value to him as herbs do.

Mags owned a kitchen garden when Richie was small enough to only reach her shoulders, and fiddled around in there for days on end, before she had gotten too sick to do it. Back then, Richie concocted excuses or plans that never existed in the first place to avoid being dragged in his mother’s time dawdling, but after her death he regretted not indulging in her invitations more often. While deciding on what plants to harvest, Richie stole a page from Maggie’s book, by picking the herbs she ate the most.

Mint and rosemary are meticulously located on the left side of allotment, as they require a sun filled location to flower and the only way to collect that is through the hatchet on the roof, an open window that allows limited sunlight to fall on a limited space.

The Dill and French Tarragon are on the opposite side, in the shade almost permanently, with the exception of an hour each day, the perfect circumstances to grow in. Richie comes in every Saturday to moistens the soil, and sheer excessive stems. He also fertilizes the soil via manure or composts, and inspects the herbage for aphids and cucumber beetles, the pesky little insect that can destroy a crop before you’re even informed they’re there, and he rids away the weeds. In addition, if his sister is busy with one client and he notices there’s another customer waiting in line, he’ll step it up and act like a fully paid employee by addressing the shopper in a professional matter, as much as possible, and ringing up their total.

On Saturday the eleventh of June, Richie arrives at the store earlier then his sister. She told him this beforehand, and asked if he would be so kind to open up around ten A.M, and to not forget to roll the cart with flowers outside to lure more customers in. Richie, being the good brother he is, does all that and more, opening the doors an hour before standard opening time, because one woman was sat in her car watching him go in, anxiously beating her fingers to the wheel of her car.

She ends up buying three bouquets of tulips, a blue fern, and a petite shovel she says she’s going to use to dig a hole for the tulips. They chatter for a while longer, but she never explains why she looked nervous, and Richie doesn’t ask. He watches her car drive off the parking lot at 9:10, but decides against reclosing the shop, and retreats to the backroom where the allotments are.

As Richie grabs and fills a watering can to the brim, he imagines the woman to be called Katheryn, and that her purchased items are all part of a school assignment for her children, who have to get it done by the next school day.

Conceptualizing the lives of the people who come shopping is not a new practice to Richie, he’s done this many times before, and some of his best comedy material even originated from it. Funny anecdotes that he translates to his life is one of the ways he managed to hide his sexuality for as long as he did. It’s not a breach of privacy, since Richie isn’t sure these things have actually happened, though he’s gotten pretty good at reading people from their style and facial expression alone, so Richie feels no shame in the matter.

Not a lot of clients come through the door during the day, but that’s not surprising, with it being a weekday, and so Richie works uninterrupted, pulling out weeds and fertilizing the herb gardens until they’re nice and clean. At five, a half an hour before they close, Victoria sends Richie to her car to retrieve a new painting to be hung up above the cash register, a sad clown that gives Richie the creeps, and when he returns, he lays eyes on the man pondering around the door.

The way he’s positioned, back turned towards the majority of the crowd, head ducked in an uncomfortable position to stare at his phone without actually typing or scrolling down, says enough that the guy just wants to be left alone. Richie can’t wait to go talk to him and annoy the living shit out of him.

The man has chestnut brown hair that ducks a little under his ears, frazzled from continuously misplacing his hair, a worrying frown dictating most of his face, contorting his features to a bossy and uninviting gremlin, and a small statue just reaching up to Richie’s chin. He has a chiseled nose and jaw, razor sharp as his gaze. In short, he is Richie type through and through. A blush warms up Richie’s cheeks almost on cue, simply by regarding john doe, so he ducks down and avoids eye contact, not that the man has bothered looking up from his phone in the first place, and dumps the painting under the counter, then retreats to his sanctuary.

The door behind the cash register is a direct attachment to the back room, and with the door open Richie can check out what’s happening in front of the store above the herbs he’s working on, but this time he resolutely slides the stool over to the other side, a place from where he is unseeing of the man. His back is placed towards the entry, but he’s not worried about getting mugged, his sister is more than scary if she needs to be. His bravado dissipated the moment he started blushing like a school girl seeing her crush, and he knows that talking to the man will only result in a painfully awkward encounter for the both of them.

Condemned to a life of never knowing anything about the man walking straight out of Richie’s best dreams, he curses under his breath and sets to work on the final adjustments he has left to make before he can go home and eat take out in peace. In his mind, he tries to convince himself that his personality wouldn’t have been Richie’s taste after all. That he lacks opinions or interests and that all he had going for him where his dashing looks, an airhead in the same way Richie’s previous, boyfriends were. Richie sighs and sifts the dirt.

‘Excuse me, could you point me to the sage?’ The man from before asks, hovering behind Richie’s back, rasping his shoe against the ground. Though the words are polite, his cadence betrays that he is annoyed and on the verge of blowing up in someone’s face, and the person on the opposite side of his phone seems to be the one doomed to sweat it out. He furiously defers his attentions to type out a response, then looks up for Richie’s answer.

‘Eu’, Is the only sound that Richie can come up with at the snap of a second, brain zipping shut by the general handsomeness of the guy that displays in every visible fact. He is wearing a fancy suit, black with a cream colored tie to match it off, but his frown remains, and the his phone is squeezed tightly in his hand.

‘You’re not supposed to be back here’, Richie says and cringes at the same time. The truth beneath the words does not mean they sound any less rude and inconsiderate, and any chance Richie had to uphold a regular conversation with him surely is off the table now.

The man frowns, and opens his mouth, also reddening like Richie, but for a different outcome. ‘And we don’t have sage available here’, Richie hurries to say, which is true, as they only have seeds to plant, but not sage ready to go at a moment’s notice.

‘Why don’t you go to the store two streets from here dude, it’s not that far?’

‘I fucking did, but they ran out.’ His phone buzzes with an incoming text, which he reads, only to shove his phone in his pocket with such a furry Richie is surprised the pocket doesn’t tear under its force.

‘And my wife won’t stop hassling me about it. I know, it’s my fault, I should have made a quick stop the shop on my way to work, but I had a meeting and I was already running late. But do you think she would step up and go get the damn sage herself? No, of course not. She’s too busy getting her hair done for our company tonight. Oh yeah did I mention we have guest over?’ A hand motions swerved through the air, dramatic and passionate about the topic, and oh fuck. Contradictory to his earlier convictions, this gremlin of a man is everything Richie’s ever desired in a man.

‘I’m gonna be so late, and then they’ll have a reason to fucking bleat about me again. She might force me to do a time management class or something, or try and convince me to quit my job again. I-… And you probably don’t care about anything I’ve just said’, he ended his rant, sheepishly shaking his head and straighten his tie.

‘No, no, keep going’, Richie immediately corrected, the words coming out of his mouth flying over his head, hazed in the process of zeroing in on the man’s timbre. He had a warm flooded voice, Richie could make out that much, even with the brittles that was swept in alongside the annoyance.

‘Oh, well that was kind of it.’

With his fixation on the way the stranger spoke moreover then focusing on the meaning of his words, the realization that the man had a wife sunk in a tad later. Despite only knowing him for five minutes, Richie’s bumped out, a little upset he will forever be out for reach, just like all the other guys Richie has ever wanted to be romantically involved with. No surprise there, as most guys never had a clue Richie was gay in the first place. He schools his facial expression to not give anything away, a portrait worthy smile accentuated by the light bestowed upon him. The straightness of this specimen is an inevitable undercurrent to the shitshow that is Richie life, so this is simply another loop Richie will have no choice but to experience helplessly.

He retracts his hand from the manure, wiping them pell-mell off his pants and offers it to the man, hoping that he will take it. ‘Richie’, he greets, wanting to prolong the conversation and know the name of the guy he is most definitely going to write a bit in his next show about.

‘Edward,’ the man greets, but he scrunches up his nose inspecting Richie’s hand. Richie takes a look himself and cognizes why in an instant. His hand is coated with mud and dried leaves, dirt imbedded under his fingernails that he can never completely get rid of by himself, but orders the help of his best friends or his make-up artist before a show. Compared to Edwards fingernails, neatly trimmed so all the white is bygone, and protected by a layer of shine Richie is certain has to come from nail polish, Richie wouldn’t dare touch his hand either.

He puts his hands down on his pants again, though a wet rag he holds nearby at all times is right there for the rescue, but that only deepens the scrunching of Edwards nose.

‘So’, Richie whistles embarrassed, ‘Edward as in Edward of twilight? Are you a team Edward kind of guy?’

‘So, are you a no personal hygiene kind of guy?’ he fires back without pause, path clearing a way straight to Richie’s heart.

‘Rude.’ Edward looks startled, blinking his big brown doe eyes at Richie as if he’s remembering that he is talking to the guy that’s supposed to help him.

‘I’m just kidding Edmund.’

‘Edmund? My name is Edward.’ His reluctance forgotten, Richie gets a first seat row to see Eddie’s eyes turn fiery, preparing for war simply because he hates the nickname Richie forced on him.

‘Not a fan of my nicknames? That’s fine, I’m great with them E-dawg, I’ll get it right sometime.’

‘Don’t ever call me either of those things again.’

‘Should I call you cutie then?’ Richie counters too fast and unthinkingly, rooting positively green from the bitter taste his implications leave. ‘That’s what I call all my friends’, he squeaks, although Edward and him are not friends in the slightest.

‘Right’, Edward says, fighting against a laugh bubbling up from his core. Richie can see him do it, his throat bobbing up and down. ‘Are you going to help me find sage then?’

‘We really don’t own any sage right now Eddington.’ Richie ignores the ‘don’t call me that’, and ponders over something to help Eddie with. He lands on the a possible replacement for the herb.

‘Why don’t you just take some Rosemary?’

‘Why Rosemary? Isn’t that like the furthest from sage flavor?’

‘Do you honestly think you could pick out the flavor of sage out of a line up Ward?’

‘I- I guess not.’

‘Trust me, neither will your guests. And anyway, Rosemary is the closest replacement to sage there is. Let me guess, you’ll be cooking it with chicken? Well Rosemary fits with chicken perfectly too, and you can spin some story about how you’re experimenting with food and get labeled the best husband for doing something special with your wife.’

Richie’s fatal flaw will forever be his pathological need to provide relief for others no matter how it affects him. Sure, he really wishes Eddie didn’t have a wife, but he does have one, and Richie is not going to ruin their day because he feels sorry for himself.

‘That’s actually not a bad idea, do you happen to know who sells that?’

‘We do.’ Richie gestures to the allotment and the sections that contains the herb, unrooting part of it already and shoving it in Eddie’s face. ‘Here you go.’

Edward eyes the plant carefully, flitting backwards from the plant towards to allotment. ‘They’re not poisonous are they?’

‘What? No Eduardo, obviously not. Jesus fucking Christ why would I do that?’

‘Did you use pesticides? Because that can lead to dangerous side effect that including fucking dying Richard.’

‘Wow, you guessed my name first try, are you a psychic?’ Richie chuckles humorously, thumbs flashing up.

‘You said your name was Richie.’

‘Yeah, Derogatory from the name Richard, Ward.’

‘That’s your worst attempt at a nickname so far.’

‘Ah but at least you’re noticing I’ve been trying to woo you since the very beginning now. And no, we use manure.’

Racing over Richie’s latest idiot statement, Eddie crosses his arms. ‘I don’t know what that is.’

‘It’s a natural remedy’, Richie chooses to say, sensing Eddie’s lingering apprehensiveness. ‘I promise it’s safe. Just go and impress your wife and whoever else is in your home and think of me when you get a thank you lay.’

‘You’re absolutely disgusting, I will not think of you during’, Edward mucks his hands around to explain himself. ‘Anything. But I will gratefully accept the rosemary. How much do I owe you?’

Richie shakes his head. ‘Nothing, it’s free.’

‘I’m not scamming you Richie how much?’

‘You’re not. See it as a peace offering for not having any sage.’

Eddie frowns as Richie runs over to grab a plastic bag to put it in, debating on arguing with Richie any longer before he receives a phone call and realizes that if he wants to get let back in the house, he must leave now. With a grunt, he seizes hold of the bag and hurries to the exit. ‘Thank you so much, Richie.’ And then he’s gone without a single goodbye. Richie sighs, pursing his lips in a line. ‘Great, another opportunity wasted.’

\-------

The next Saturday that rolls around, Edward doesn’t show. Richie hadn’t exactly expected him too, the man just needed a solution to a particular problem and thus had no business coming back to the garden center, but every time the bells chime, indicating someone entering the building, it sparks a foreign sanguine in Richie. Foreign but stupid none the less, Richie instils the words ‘he’s married, he’s married’, over and over, thinks about writing it on a piece of paper and shoving it down his throat to truly connect to the words, but he’s already made two trips to the ER in the last three months and would prefer not to add any more.

Edward floats through his mind during the blossoming of the rosemary, Richie thinking of the finger licking food Edward must have made and wondering if his wife appreciated his efforts. He’s unaware if Eduardo is a good cook or not, but in Richie’s mind he is, and he whipped a Yorkshire pudding with Rosemary mixed in it to blow off some steam. He’d have apologized in his way for the demoralizing comments he spit out to a stranger loitering around in allotments, and then went to bed and snuggled up with his wife, staying true to his promise, not once thinking back to Richie.

That thought sucks, so Richie refuses to let it see the light of day and tries to block him out of his mind mentally, physically being a little too forceful on extracting weeds and accidently uprooting several innocent roots in his quest to do so.

Richie finds himself guilty of perceptualizing his objects of affection, painting a picture so amicable it’s impossible not to be infatuated by the man he’s thinking about. Beverly, one of his best friends, claims that he does this because he’s ashamed of falling for a man and the habit is characterized by his need to justify his romantic or sexual feeling towards men in general. Maybe if he finds the perfect man, the world will understand why and how Richie is in love with the same sex, so he won’t have to feel so guilty. This, according to her, is also an explanation as to why, in over 40 years Richie’s never brought home a guy for any of them to meet. He’s dated two, but contained it to either of their bedrooms and a vacation house he bought and told absolutely no one about.

She learns all about this during her therapy, the one she needs to adapt to a life where she’s the one in control, and not the men surrounding her. Richie’s uncomfortable with these topics – he thinks she might be right, but at this point in his life it’s too late to do anything about it - so he uses these as a gateway to talk about Bev’s problems instead of his.

After the last customer leaves, his sister retreats to the backroom and helps to water the herbs, scanning him, in what Richie thinks is supposed to be secretly under her eyelashes.

‘Are you okay?’ She eventually asks, boxing away the tools and equipment and shoving it under a table, out of sight to be taken back out on Monday.

‘Why wouldn’t I be Vicks?

‘You’ve been awfully quiet today, and we all know how you love to hear yourself talk’, she teases, battling away an insistent fly of an apple she convinced herself she would eat in the morning, but switched for a piece of cake instead.

‘Not when I’m working Vicko, then I’m tolling and direct all my energy in my precious lifesaving.’

‘Oh Richie’, she says petulant, ‘If you define this as ‘working,’ she air quotes, ’I have some news for you.’

‘So you don’t work at all then either?’

‘There’s a big difference between harboring one of these things and keeping a shop open for business dick.’ Vicky’s good moods capsizes, and she walks away from Richie with a big fat middle finger. Richie grins, loving that he still has the ability to press her buttons after years of doing it. The one way to get Vicky riled is to bemoan her business, so naturally that’s the thing Richie plays at.

‘Hey, don’t hate me because I don’t have a boring nine to five job.’

‘My employment isn’t boring Richard, and we can’t all stay kids and cater to fifteen year old’s who don’t know good humor if it hit them in the face.’

‘No, you’, Richie points to her, ‘were like that, and were too dumb to sense my upcoming genius in my field of work Vicky.’

Vicky sighs deeply, but her sour mood has flipped again, and she squints his way. ‘I wasn’t too dumb to discover you were gay.’

And yeah, she’s right about that. She was the first one, ever, that Richie told his secret to. Pretty early on after he himself accepted this fact too, as his mother pressed him about going to prom with his neighbor, a girl called Sandy, and Richie broke down, realizing that his future would forever include lying and by all accounts marrying a woman to prove he’s not gay.

It didn’t come as a surprise, not quite, as it was something that had always been in the back of Richie mind, subconsciously pushing forward it’s agenda so that Richie was doomed into became aware of it, battling against the unknown because even at a young age Richie knew that boys that looked at other boys the way he did were in for a lifetime of agony.

‘Ah, but did you find out, or did I tell you?’

‘That’s for me to know and for you to debate until the day you die.’ 

They walk over to the door, Richie installing the alarm by pressing the six digit code in the machine, while Victoria rumbles in her bag to find her keys.

‘Remember that guy that came into the store last week and asked for - what was it he asked for again?’

Richie chokes on his spit, rapping his hand against his chest in order to clean his airways and spluttering around the door. ‘Sage?’

‘Yeah, and he left with some of your stuff right?’

‘The guy you complained about because you told him not to go in the backroom and he did anyway?’ Richie says pinched, willing his sister to lock the door faster.

‘I don’t understand why he disobeyed an employee, like I’ve told you before, who doesn’t have the respect and decency to listen to a clerk, I bet he is one of those assholes that cut you off in traffic.’

Richie lets her words pass by without interrupting, feeling increasingly hot. ‘Yeah, I bet.’

Vicky turns to him, regarding him with a wary look. ‘Anyway, he left us a really good review so I owe you a thank you.’

‘No need for such formalities Victoria, For you I shall put everything on the line’, Richie replies with a British accent, wobbly and unexpecting bad. Edwards name got him all riled up and flustered, but that’s fine, he can deal with his embarrassing and unobtainable crush in the privacy of his own home, what he can’t digest, is his sister knowing.

They have a good bond, close enough in a way that not many siblings get to be at their age - cranky and snippy one day and friendly and caring the other - but she’s on a relentless quest to find Richie a man to settle down with, as in her words; he deserves someone to love without fear, and if he can’t find that person for himself, someone has to give him a hand.

She’s set up blind dates before, and they always ended disastrous and with a few fights between the siblings that caused them to avoid the other for a few days, and if she finds out Richie had developed a little crush, - not a crush he emphasizes, a brief infatuation, a pash -, he would never hear the end of it.

He won’t tell her that he looked the name Edward up in about any and all social media’s sites he could find, ranging from twitter to Instagram and even linked-in. Solely the name Edward never got him very far unfortunately, and no further information came from it. No pictures of Edward or his wife he could spy at, no idea what the guy did for a living, and no way to tell if he is inherently an interesting person.

He even opened a Facebook account, not by his real name -he’s too known for that – but by using his father’s name. And yes, he does get how creepy that is. But in his defense, it’s not like his old man is about to start a Facebook profile, and Richie truly can’t use his own name for fear that people will recognize him and begin to stalk him, and for rumors to surface as to why he would do such a thing. He’s put his manager through a lot, but another scandal might be the final nail in his coffin.

And in the end it’s all for nothing, because as it turns out, Edward truly is a very popular name - Richie blames the twilight generation - and without a last name Richie doesn’t have a leg to stand on. It’s fine, the less Richie knows about him, the faster he will get over him.

‘Hmm’, Vicky hums, a teasing smile on its way to coil around Richie and squeeze him into suffering stopped by the alarm blaring away her concentration. 

‘Shit’, she curses, suddenly a lot faster with locking the door and walking over to her car. ‘I’m so sorry Rich, I need to pick up some dry-cleaning before they close.’

Vicky stops by his side and presses a kiss to his cheek, departing the parking lot and only turning around last minute to shout something to him.

‘Dinner at my place tomorrow?’

Richie throws her a thumbs up and waves as she takes off, mulling over what type of take out he’ll be having tonight. Edward remains on his mind as Richie’s eating Chinese, imagining the fun and youthful banter he and Edward could be having, if he was even the slightest bit gay and interested in Richie at all.

\-----

The bus is a half-an hour later than usual, a combination of traffic and a bus driver majorly oversleeping, and the day is not off to a good start already. Richie has no animosity towards any public driver at all, and it would be hypocritical for one to say that Richie’s never been late himself, but waiting in a petite stall filled up with people starting get prickly and annoyed is, surprisingly, not his favorite activity to waste his day on.

He feeds off people’s emotions and aura’s, internalizing them and giving back the same energy, so it does not bode well for his ambience. Richie possesses a car of his own, but it’s a fancy, too attention-drawing car to remain inconspicuous about his identity, and it gets extra annoying that it’s too big to find an easy parking space. Plus, the environment and shit.

He arrives at the garden center by the time it’s opened, and by the looks of the parking lot, it’s going to be a busy day. The cars are nearly stacked after one another, and not one slot is empty. Richie gets one moment to be grateful he did decide to take the bus, before he is witness to what could have been a damaging accident.

One of the parking slots clears, the driver finished with buying the required garden equipment, and from then on out, it’s a battle between two cars, driving from the opposite direction. Richie’s doubting his laziness and his indifference about signing a petition against the transformation of a one-way street to a two way street, with the road now being more prone to collation. The one car steering in closest to the parking lot turns on his traffic indicator, signaling that he’s about to move right, but the other car propels forward, cutting of the car with a sharp rotation, ignoring the heavy honking and sliding in perfectly, a hair away from bumping in to each other.

The window rolls down, and the face of the man that’s been haunting Richie for the past two weeks appears. ‘Fuck you, my grandmother can drive faster than you.’

The car honks once more and then speeds off in the opposite direction under the furious gaze of Edward, despite it being him that’s technically in the wrong. Richie wisefully remains silent, staring unhabituated as Edward shuts of the ignition and exits his vehicle, the remnants of anger hooking themselves in his brass movements.

He’s no longer dressed is a suit like last time, but he’s not wearing anything relaxed either, a white polo with khakis that accentuate the form of his ass extraordinary well. Richie rushes to look away, pretending he wasn’t just checking out the man he has a clear conformation that is married.

‘Richie, hello,’ Eddie says as he fixes his shirt, a polite smile on his face that is so contradictory to his previous stream of explosive words Richie physically puts a hand on his belly to avoid laughing.

‘Edward,’ Richie salutes in a posh English accent, bowing down in imitation of a royal greeting. ‘Fancy seeing you here my good fellow.’

‘It’s Eddie you dick,’ he snorts, ‘I can’t believe you used nearly every available nickname except the one all my friends use.’

‘Eddie’, Richie tries out, slowly sounding out every syllable to get a feel for the name. ‘Eddie’ does fit him way better than the name Edward ever could, too polite and gentle for the boisterous sneaking away in the shadows of his façade. Richie carefully doesn’t analyze the ‘all my friends use’, and what it means that Eddie told him without any prompting.

‘The only people calling me Edward are my coworkers.’

‘And I don’t resemble your coworkers?’ Richie presses with a grin, taking a good look at the clothes he plucked out of his closet that morning. A bright red Hawaiian shirt with a bunch of different colored flowers on It, paired with jeans that are a size too small and therefor doesn’t cover the entirety of his ankles. Too lazy to comb his hair, his curls are a tangled mess that will take ages to unravel, if the hairdresser even decide it’s worth the trouble and doesn’t just cut it off, and tick-rimmed coke bottle glasses covering the larger part of his face. Self-consciously Richie tugs on his shirt to hide the small belly he required by drinking excessively in his twenty’s and eating junk food in replacement of the healthy vegetables he should be having.

Eddie’s eyes scour him, chuckling and shrugging at the same time. ‘No, but that’s not a bad thing at all.’ Richie flounders under the compliment, his heart palpitating.

‘What kind of work do you do anyway? Your boring ass suit the other day tells me it’s boring.’

‘I’m a risk analyst.’

Richie snorts, not even trying to cover up his blatant amusement, clueless on what his job entails. ‘In that case Edward is suitable for you.’

A streak off disappointment stabs Richie in his underbelly when Eddie doesn’t return the question back, too disinterested in him to have the common decency to return the attentiveness. The perfect image Richie conjured Eddie to be is beginning to show burst, but then Eddie rolls his eyes and tilts his face sideways so Richie gets a good view of one of his dimples, and the dismay shrivels away into something more pleasant.

‘No it doesn’t, Edward makes me sound old.’ Quietly he mutters, ‘and everyone associates it with twilight. As if having Kaspbrak for a last name isn’t bad enough.’

‘You are old dude.’

‘I’m forty, that’s not old at all. Fifty is the age you get old, but forty is still young asshole. How old are you?’

‘I’m twenty Edward, I can’t believe you have to ask.’

‘Twenty my ass, and I know you’re only calling me Edward to piss me off, so stop it.’

‘Well, Eddie,’ Richie emphasizes, ‘I’m twenty in spirit. And are you just going to let what happened a second ago slide? That’s some nasty road rage you have right there.’

‘What are you talking about it? It’s within my full right to yell at incompetent drivers all I want. Did you see that guys driving skills? Horrendous.’

Richie laughs, head thrown back in amusement, while Eddie splutters in disagreement. ‘Whatever you say Eds. So, what brings you here today?’

‘First of all, don’t call me that, and second of all,’ he points to the same plastic bag Richie donned him the herbs last time he was here - something Richie hadn’t noticed yet with all his staring at the man himself-, ‘I need some more cooking advice.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Myra thought the rosemary was tasteful and well, liked bragging about it to her so called friends, and now she’s invited her coworkers and forced me into preparing another meal and being weirdly creative with it, but I have no inspirations and therefore need your help.’

A sick feeling settles in the pit of Richie’s stomach, forcing him to swallow so the bile gathering in his throat gets pushed back. It doesn’t make any sense, as Eddie is practically still a stranger to him and never led him on in any way, but Richie guesses the crippling loneliness is a side effect to his overly affectionate personality, and the way he so desperately seeks validation over common sense.

Yeah, he’s a bit jalouse of Eddie’s wife for being in a relationship with Eddie, but he’s also generally jalouse of a relationship, and the love that glides like a kaleidoscope between two people who care about each other so much they’ll do anything to make the other happy. Maybe he’s been watching too many romantic comedies for his expectations in life to be reasonable, but it could also simply be inordinate because he is Richie Tozier.

‘Sorry to disappoint, again, but I’m kind of at a loss here myself. Can’t you just whip something up and lie about what’s in it?’

‘Well that’s not really a fucking option, because I guess I’m a child that needs constant protection from everything. She watches me cook under a more watchful gaze than she critics bakers on my cupcake wars. One time she even handed me a smaller knife as protection.’

Richie whistles between his teeth, starting to get the inclination that the marriage might not be going so well.

‘Okay’, he drawls, thinking of a recent recipe he made for Vicky and her family, one that’s both easy and compact. ‘Oeh, I got it. You can make a basil pasta? Or a oregano pasta? They’re equal in tones except that Basil is more of a minty flavor, and Oregano has an earthy undertone.’

‘Yeah that could work’, Eddie ponders, making a mental note to google search the recipe and prepare for every step meticulously.

‘We only have the seeds for those herbs unfortunately, but I’m sure you can find both in the supermarket. As long as you don’t wait to go shopping last minute again Eds’, Richie teases.

‘Ha-ha’, Eddie deadpans, ‘I’m glad you got a good laugh out of my misery man.’

‘You can’t come here and lie to me Eduardo, I know that you’re wife gave you a complementary blow job at the very least.’

Eddie shakes his head, frown set back on his previously at peace facial expression. ‘No way, we don’t do that, never.’

‘Never? Oh dude, you don’t know what you’re missing out on.’

‘Whatever,’ Although he glares, Richie can see the outlines of the dimples he suppressing, and the way his Adams apple bobs in hushed laughter, trapped by his teeth and lips. ‘I should go to the store and get out of your hair.’

‘Yeah, and I should go in, if I stay out here for any longer my sister might report me as a missing person. Can’t be out of her sight for longer than five minutes before she starts to suspect I’m in trouble.’

A sickly white sets Eddie’s face awash, ashen grey with wobbling knees and brown eyes that scream concern. It shocks Richie as much as it launches another snide of eagerness to switch lives with someone who gets to feel what it’s like to be desired and cared for.

‘Dude, I’m just kidding. I’m also a huge clutz and if you haven’t heard for me in five minutes there’s definitely something wrong.’

‘Right - right I know that.’ Eddie laughs too loud and hysterical, it becomes unsettling. He’s vibrating out of his skin the same way Richie is, racking his brain to say something that will make up for the grave mistake he did without paying attention. ‘I have to go, but I’ll see you around Richie. Thanks again for the advice.’

That’s all it is, Richie bets the universe and himself. All it is, is a wish to be loved, it has nothing to do with Eddie fucking Kaspbrak at all. Eddie is just a pawn his twisted mind wields for its own agenda. Richie would bet money that he’ll go to a gay bar, introduce himself to someone that resembles Eddie, and his heart will hop over to the next guy to be crushed.

\-----

It has everything to do with Eddie Kaspbrak, and if the imaginary bet existed, Richie would be running out of money by now. He can’t deny the facts any longer as he stares at the blank icon of Eddie’s twitter page, the one he fossicked for hours. Eddie’s profile picture is none existent, a blank generic outline of a person, undetermined male or female, alongside a grey background. His users name is @EdwardKaspbrak, a plaintive, unprovoking name compared to the one Richie operates under these days; @trashmouthtoyourservice.

The only reason Richie put the pieces together and realized this was in fact it is the Eddie he met, was via the one picture he had uploaded on his page, a photo of him and his wife on their wedding day. The two of them are visibly younger, but they don’t glow or shine in the way Richie thought couples getting married were supposed to do. Their postures are rigid and aloof, like they’re at a middle school dance and were scolded by the teacher to hold their arms above the waistline.

Myra’s wedding dress is beiges tinted, and is decorated in a flowery pattern that runs from the heart shaped top to the underside of the skirt, baring resemblance to the curtains hanging from Richie’s grandmothers living room. Her hair is scrunched up and pined in place thanks to several black pins, and the flower on top must have fallen off during the day somewhere, because all that’s left is the green vestiges. Her smile is wide but it’s obvious, or perhaps Richie is just good at reading people, that she’s frustrated and impatient.

She’s not what holds Richie’s eyes whoever, he’s focused on the shrunken posture of Eddie, in a blue navy costume with a flower pinned to his breast pocket. Richie gets jittery nerves when he stares at Eddie, pumped full with energy that he has no nowhere to distribuend. He walks around his coffee table a few rounds, but it bears little result, so he sits back down and goes back to ogling the man he no longer can deny crushing for, hard. With all his attention going to the couple in the front, it takes him a while to spot the background of the photo, but when he does, he chortles.

There’s a child, no older than twelve running off with a piece of cake in his hands, a woman furiously trying to yank him out of the frame, but her aim missing by a mile. The kid grins triumphantly, holding the cake up as a god giving present.

Guilt gnaws at Richie - this might be a sentimental picture for the couple, and he’s polluting it by lusting after one of them-, imagining him into exiting out of the profile and watching a movie to waste the rest of his evening. He keeps finding excuses to take one last peek, like checking to make sure he didn’t accidently follow Eddie and make him think he’s a creep, or seeing if he’s online or not. At nine P.M, Richie is sick of sitting in his apartment doing nothing, so he rings his best friend Stan and asks him what he’s up to, full intention on drinking himself black out drunk.

\-----

A manifestation of bugs on his allotment is the last thing Richie needs this late in the growing . It’s a difficult exercise to remove all the little fuckers without pesticides, which could potentially harm humans eating it, and it requires a delicate hand and patient. Neither of the two Richie possesses. Vicky offers to do it, but Richie made a commitment before starting, and he’s not about to give up so quickly. By the grace of whatever God deals with agriculture, the bugs are aphids and though they troop in large groups, they are also the quickest to go thanks to help of a little water and a goal orientated spray.

Richie focalizes on the efforts so much, he is shocked when Eddie’s standing in the backroom suddenly, hands in his pockets and observing with a endeared smile. Yelping and dropping the water spray simultaneously, Richie hunches back from his chair, long limbs floundering in a panic stricken haze to appear normal.

‘Hey you came back Eds,’ Richie rejoins zealous, wincing as he hears how desperate he sounds for Eddie’s attention, and how happy he is that Eddie did drop by. Vicky, behind the cash register, points to Eddie with thumbs down, mounting something Richie can’t be bothered to decipher.

‘Yeah,’ Eddie agrees easily, ’I stopped by on Tuesday and Thursday too, but you weren’t in.’

‘That’s cause I’m never here in on weekdays, those days I’m requested everywhere at once.’

‘Wow, a job that only requires you to come in on the weekend, does it pay good?’ Eddie inquires facetiously, whistling between his teeth.

‘I wouldn’t know, I’m too busy making people laugh to have the week off.’

Eddie quirks an eyebrow, humming a confused sound. ‘You don’t work here permanently?’

Richie chuckles, ‘No dude, I’m a comedian. I go on a stage and be hilarious and then watch everyone swoon over me. How dare you not know who the magnificent,’ he pitches his voice to a baseball announcer, ‘Trashmouth Tozier is?’

‘In hindsight I really shouldn’t be surprised’, Eddie laments. ‘I have style you know, I don’t watch shitty shows where they let middle aged men ridicule themselves on television.’

‘Excuse you, I’ll have you know that I’m actually popular enough to have fan pages. You heard it right baby, these hands’, he shows off his hands,’ have seven thousand followers on twitter.’

Eddie regards them with more interested then Richie expected, feeling the urge to clench his hands shut and hide them from sight. He doesn’t, because he’s frozen in place and will do anything, embarrassing or not, to be the center of Eddie’s attention.

Eddie puffs unconvinced.

‘What you don’t believe me? I’ll prove it you. I have another show on Friday and after I’ll show you the evidence.’

‘Maybe I’ll come around, then.’

Richie stares wide-eyed, accidently squashing the mint leaves he held between his fingers. ‘Y-you don’t have to do that man.’

‘I don’t, but who else is gonna heckle you on stage? Someone has got to keep you on your toes.’

Bovenkant formulier

Eddie reaches over Richie’s shoulder to grasp his hand, prying it open until the plant springs back to its original state, pared with a few new indents.

‘Careful you dumbass, I know how much time you put in to this so don’t destroy it,’ Eddie lightly scolds, rotating his face to glare at Richie. The movement brings their two faces even closer, so close in fact that their noses are nearly touching, and Richie nervous energy returns full force. He bites the inside of his lip forcibly, grounding him in the moment and establishing that he’s still alive, because his insides melt in a puddle of gooey. Factually perceiving that nothing is going to happen and craving it to occur are two separate, unyielding things, and Richie is suffering the brunt of the clashing.

Eddie’s eyes turn hazy, the brown obstructed by an invisible fog tempering with his judgment, until he blinks and suddenly rests his head back, alarming both Richie and himself. Richie coughs loudly to lucid his own mind.

‘If you don’t want me to come dude you can say so.’

‘No, you can come, I-‘ the word dissolve in his throat, his memories hissing them to stay back, to stay hidden, but he vocalizes them in spite. ‘I want you to.’

Eddie smiles, two dimples popping up from their hiding spot, Richie hurries to commit them to memory. ‘Then I’ll be there.’

Richie smiles back unintentionally, his gooey insides slowly forming back up to a whole, like Eddie’s smile has the ability to break him down and built him back from scratch.

‘Do you want a taste of the program Spaghetti?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Hey hey,’ Richie attracts, gesturing to the mint plant growing bolstering in the sun. ‘Smell this and tell me what it is, you’re gonna know what it is I swear.’

Eddie surveys him warily, taking a step forward and backwards. ‘Why?’

‘Just do it Eds, please? For me?’

‘Alright I guess.’

Eddie bends down with his nose sniffling the plant, inhaling deeper once he connects the smell and eases the caution his mind reeled in the second he was asked to trust Richie.

‘It’s mint,’ he guesses correctly, smelling it again.

‘Yeah, and do you know why it reeks so well?’

Eddie nods, assuming Richie is about to hit him with another fun fact about his gardening.

‘I soiled it with pee.’

Rocking away from the deviant in question, Eddie begins to swat at Richie’s hands. ‘Fuck you, that’s disgusting. That better have been a lie, I swear to god. I’ll sue you for everything you’re worth.’

Richie inflates with laughter, rocking as his chair and slapping his knee as an extra outlet.

‘Are these the fucking jokes you’re gonna tell on stage? Cause if they are, I will boo you to hell and back.’

It’s hard not to laugh along with Richie infections sounds though, and Eddie joins in alongside him to laugh out his scare.

‘But in all seriousness, that was a joke right?’

\-----

The bugs shrink away, and Richie’s life expectancies downs with it.

Colbi plaza is a regular stand up Richie has been performing at since the very beginning of his comedy carrier. The place itself isn’t that big, and it doesn’t allow for as much fans as Richie normally attracts in bigger venue’s, but it’s cozy and the people are friendly. He exploits the place by trying out his jokes there before moving on the big leagues, and he refuses to accept money for it. The chef prepares him a fresh made spaghetti in lieu, filled with more nutrients than anything else Richie eats during his entire week, which is both pathetic and endearing in their own right. The place holds a spot near and dear to his heart. 

The routine is a tranquil version of the otherwise impactful ordeal of being put on a stage and blabbering your way through an hour worth of comedy, but Eddie coming to watch him truly has Richie in shambles, fucking up the peaceful presence Richie tries to preserve.

Entertaining people has always been accompanied with a slice of nervousness and anxiety for Richie. Thousands of unrecognizable strangers judging him and contemplating if he’s funny enough to grant a smile and or laugh is pretty much impossible to achieve without some form of stage fright.

Richie’s come to learn though, that the most important part of being a comedian, is charisma. It’s not about being funny, or part of it is, but it’s mostly the way you carry yourself and the way people perceive you. Richie’s always had charisma overflowing, wooing his way out of assignments in college and getting free drinks from bartenders. - Yes he was labeled a trashmouth, the origin to his stage name, but when it came too it, his teachers praised his scholar accomplishments and let him get away with most things on the condition of keeping up his grade - his free pass for all of the misogynistic and homophobic languishes he portrayed in his earlier comedian days. Humor is subjective and therefore apparently better left up to the professionals writers behind the scene that mold words into pretty package and deliver them hand ready to use.

He's since progressed and out of the closet with his darkest secret, and that helps with the jokes he produces, but still the one thing he has going for him is his charisma. Deciding against a whole new set of jokes, and yes it’s because most of his jabs revolve around the stick up his ass man he’s recently been obsessed about, he reworks some of his old material and lifts it to the next level, hoping that he can still pull it off with Eddie in the audience.

Not that he managed to pull it off in the first place, his babyshoe content was decent, but then tumbled down the drains faster than he could make a your mom joke.

‘It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m calm, I’m cool and I got this.’, Richie whispers to himself in the kitchen of the restaurant, hidden away from the prying eyes of the masses. Stanley rolls his eyes, shoving a bottle of whiskey his way. ‘Drink this before you drive me absolutely insane.’

‘Leave him alone Stanley, he’s having one of his episodes’, Beverly dejects, firmly pressing her hands on Richie’s shoulder and ripping the bottle away from him. ‘No more drinking, I don’t want to have to clean up your puke.’

‘I’ll take it’, Bill muses, guzzling down a huge gulp of the booze, swaying on his legs as it is already. ‘It’s good.’

Richie laughs, ‘I promise this time won’t be like the last,’ but he can’t realistically promise that. The first, instinctual reaction of his body to unwanted emotions is to throw up or barf, and the latter doesn’t leave redness around his eyes, therefor winning Richie’s vote.

‘Haven’t heard that one before.’ A struggle takes place between two of his dearest friends, fighting to win the affronted bottle, Stan celebrating victorious. Beverly sighs deeply, completely fed up with the whole ordeal, and facing Richie head on once more. ‘You’ll be fine. You love this place remember?’

He does, but that’s not where he’s tension is mouthing off. He adores Bev, Bill and Stan, his three oldest, and only friends, each specifically equipped to deal with a Richie crisis in their own special way. They comprehend him better than anyone, even at times his sister, but in this sitation, they’re pretty much useless.

Richie never told them about Eddie to begin with, and he’s not obliged to, but he can still picture their reactions perfectly.

Stanley, possibly his best friend out of all three, not that he’ll ever choose between them, will tell him he’s an idiot. His job as an accountant proves that he’s the only with brains in the special little family they’ve created for themselves, it also secure him a roll as the rational one. He won’t be afraid to call you out for your stupidity, and he’ll do it with the grace very few pose. He’s hard shelled, and not an easy person to get to know by any means, yet if he likes you, there’s not a thing he’d back away from. He’s on Richie’s case a lot about his job, and his eating habits and pretty much everything else Stan deems unworthy of a healthy lifestyle, but god so help another person who dares to make fun of Richie in the same manner.

Beverly runs a fashion company, and Richie takes credit in part for that thank you very much, his atrocious clothing style as a child prompting Beverly to start a line for people in desperate need of a restyling. Their friendship, as Stan and Bill’s, goes a long way back. To the molten evening of sunsets where the group of middle schoolers thought they conquered the world when they avoided doing their homework for another hour, and when jumping of quarry cliffs didn’t seem as scary as they do once you turn into an adult. She would also call him an idiot, albeit lovingly and sugarcoated, with a smack to his cheek and a guy lined up she conclude is worthy of getting Richie’s mind of Eddie.

And then there’s sweet, naïve little Bill, a horror writer and brave of heart, who would advise Richie to come clean and see where it leads him. Bill’s brave like that, unafraid to run into the lions nest and risk it all. As kids Bill was their leader, conquering up adventures they’d have to run in the woods for or splash around for hours in ice cold water, and the dumb little shits all followed him, a god on earth. At this point, luckily, Richie has found out that Bill is a bit gullible and a lot more blind to the horrors the world has to offer, now Richie ignores his advice more often than not, but he still adores the guy.

‘You’re on in a minute Rich, do I n’d to get your bucket?’ Bill slurs, tongue lolling heavy in his mouth. He’s grinning because he knows Richie can never predict these things, and he’s mocking him, totally unbeknownst of his own laughable act.

‘No thanks big Bill, I don’t think you’d be able to find your way to the trashcan in the first place.’

Bill frowns, one eye shut as he points towards a bowl with salad in it prepared to be send out by the chef. ‘There it is’, he claims smug, fully convinced it is the bucket he’s pointing at.

‘I don’t think whoever’s gonna eat that will appreciate that Billy.’

‘The window of opportunity has passed, let’s go let’s go let’s go,’ Stan rushes him out the kitchen and onto the stage, propelling him forward without time for encouragement from Bev. It’s not because he wants Richie to do bad, or because he loathes the live conduct – he finds it atrocious but bares it for Richie’s sake – but he has noticed how worked up Richie gets when Bev tries to motivate him. It’s not her fault, but for every things she says, his mind supplies a counter act that stream with his worst fears and leaves him more worked up.

The dining room is jam pack full with people eating, some clapping politely and others welcoming him wholeheartedly for his act. It’s unimportant how many faces swim before him, Richie spots Eddie in five seconds flat.

Eddie brought two friends, both impressively hot and generous on the money, if the amount of beer bottles is anything to go by, and one of them is exactly Beverly’s type, but they’re outshone by the ethereal beauty of Eddie Kaspbrak. Eddie claps alongside the rest of his friends, tipping his head down under Richie’s gaze, smiling a tightlipped and withheld. All his material he memorized for tonight to go well, the way his manager has been trying to get him to do for years, crumbles like sand between his fingers. The wait to begin the show stretches on for an uncomfortable second, until Bev – a real trooper – folds her fingers in a cylinder motion and begins to slide it back and forth slowly, and the first line materializes again. He grips the mic in his sweaty palms and removes it from the microphone holder, pacing around the contained elevation.

‘So my girlfriend caught me masturbating to her Facebook page’, it draws out a few forced chuckles. Richie laughs along. ‘No, No I’m just kidding. I got you guys there though didn’t I? Don’t worry, I’m not back out, or should I say in, with my old bullshit just yet. I’ve got more dignity then that. Is what the guy behind the bar said before rejecting me once again.’ The flow gets easier after the rocky start, and Richie dares to say he’s competent. He revels at jokes sticking and washes away the bad ones, and Richie can hear Eddie snickering along with every word out of his mouth. He ends with a dramatic bow and retreats not to the kitchen, but to the bathroom to change clothes, where Bill follows him.

He’s sobered up more in the time Richie was busy – predominantly – and he hands Richie new, clean pressed clothes straight out of the new collection Bev is bringing out in the next few days. So what if he promotes his famous friends, they’ve earned every bit of recognition themselves.

Smugness is forthcoming from Bill in radiations, smirking and staring at Richie even as he switches shirt in a rapid pace. Richie waits expectantly for the bud of the jab to reveal itself, but Bill keeps the self-assured smirk on his face and says nothing. Finally, as they both strut out of the room in a hurry, Bill stops Richie in his tracks with a hand on his arm. ‘The guy you’ve been staring at all night is pretty cute huh?’

He’s not expecting a response and that’s just as well, since Richie can’t conceive any excuses for the time being, bathing in disbelieve. Bill walks away with a tap on his bicep and rejoins Stan and Bev at the bar. Christ, Bev and Stan should be ashamed of themselves. If Bill can spot it but they can’t, it must mean they’re losing their edge.

\-----

Richie fumbles around the bar for a long time before he shuts down his mind and walks over to Eddie’s table. He has three beer bottles, the same kind they had on their table at the beginning of his set, as an excuse to accost the group of men. He assumes he’s allowed to go talk to Eddie regardless of his gift, they guy did arrive to see the show because Richie performed, but he can never be too careful. 

The bottles clink together for all to hear, announcing his presence before he has time to formulate a good greeting. ‘I come bearing gifts’, he settles for, jolting the bottles even louder and dumping them on the table in front of Eddie.

Eddie is blankly staring at him, inattentive to the drinks. ‘You’re gay?’ Eddie laments, forcing eye contact with Richie. The other two men cough cumbersome, each examining another side of the venue to pretend like they’re aren’t involved in the conversation. Richie falters heavily.

He’d forgotten that Eddie didn’t have that information on him thus far. He’d begin assuming that everyone on the street recognized him from his debut coming out, and interviews are not off limits in discussing the topic either, but he hadn’t stopped to mull over that Eddie had never seen any show Richie did before.

It’s facile to abandon the fears of homophobia when you’re in the constant proximity of friends and family that love you for who you are, easy to forget that not everyone is as open minded as they are. Richie is an adult, a forty year old man and simultaneously a prepubescence teen coming out to his parents in his Sunday wear after going to the church where they preached about homosexuals going to hell and forced to pay for their sins on earth.

The worst part of it all to Richie was, ironically, voicing the words, and giving them meaning. Once it’s out it’s out, and no matter the reactions, there’s nothing he can do to influence them. But standing there and seeing all the eyes turn questionable and the pit in his stomach hardening, holding the key to his relationships unraveling in his hands, sinks Richie underwater.

Coming out hasn’t been an acute problem for a while now, and Richie has a tendency to dismiss how difficult things are after they’ve come to pass. Apparently Eddie is the one bringing it back out of him. Then again, Richie doesn’t actually have to say the words, as Eddie paved the way for him this time. 

‘Y-yes’, Richie stutters, gulping hard and praying that he isn’t a homophobic dick. ‘Is that a problem?’

Hopefully Stan is somewhere far away from this conversation, because if it does turn out to be problem Richie ought to slips away quietly and without havocking a scene.

‘No, no, I’m not that kind of guy.’ Eddie assures him fast, holding up his hands in surrender. ‘I just didn’t expect it is all.’ The panic seeps away from Richie, his legs shaking in effort of holding up his body weight during such an experience. The weird mood Eddie was portraying seems to have gone away, and the topic gets dropped to great pleasure on Richie’s side.

Eddie laughs. ‘oh, Thank you’, he accepts, shoving two bottles one way and another one the other way. ‘I don’t drink beer’, he offers as an explanation. ‘I’m more of a rosé wine guy.’

‘No worries, I’ll go get it for you.’

‘Oh Richie you really don’t have to do t-‘, but Richie’s long since striding over to the bar, utilizing his long legs to get him there faster. Flagging down a bartender isn’t difficult, but he waits until most people have received their drinks before him so he has time to get his act sorted out.

Why he gets so flustered from Eddie’s more existence is beyond him, but it has got to end. Rather sooner than later. He guessed Eddie’s drink order wrong. As a standalone fact, that’s not a big deal, but it’s symbolic, representative of the fact that Richie in essence has not even gotten the option of getting to know Eddie as a friend yet, let alone be close enough to be this infatuated with the man.

Eddie bridges the way over to him, intercepting the glass offered to Richie and sipping it with a wink. ‘I think that’s for me.’ Richie transfixes on the way his throat bobs as he swallows, physically shaking his head to clear his mind of the image. ‘Are you going to tell me the names of your friends before I go over there and make a fool of myself Eddie Spagheddie?’

‘Only if you promise to do the same for me.’

‘What do you mean?’

Eddie tilts his head in the direction of his table, formed now with Eddie’s two friends and Bev, Bill and Stanley, chattering cozily amongst themselves.

‘That one is Mike, and the other guy is Ben. Mike is a tour operator for far off countries so, if you want to befriend him just ask him a bunch of stuff about traveling. Ben is an architect and the sweetest guy you’ll ever have the pleasure of meeting.’

Sweetest guy or not, if the cozying bouting from Bev and Ben continues for much longer, Richie will recruit Stan into intimidating the guy, and Stan can come across very threating, intentionally or not.

Richie point towards his friends next. ‘Stanley or as I call him, Stan the man, is an accountant and very scary if you don’t know him. Ten out of ten would not recommend making fun of him, that’s my privilege alone. He’s got a stick up his ass so far the best surgeons have given up on him. Poor lad,’ Richie fake sniffles, ‘if only there was a way a poor country girl like me could save him.’ It’s not Richie’s best accent, but it gets a suppressed giggle.

Richie grins and looks to Eddie, ‘Kind of like you actually.’ Eddie shoves him off to the side in a brash manner. ‘Get fucked Tozier.’

‘I’d love too, it’s been a too long.’

Eddie is visibly taken aback by his brutal honesty, looking a bit guilty. ‘I’m really sorry Rich. I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘Yeah I know, It’s fine dude. You just saw me make like twenty dick jokes, I wouldn’t be doing that if I wasn’t okay with it, but seriously, we don’t have to talk about this.’

Eddie bites the inside of his lip, surveying Richie body langue in a way that elects a shiver in Richie. Finally, he accepts Richie’s statement. The peaceful moments that drapes over them stretches on forever, lost in the haze of their connection.

‘Who are the others?’

‘Billy boy is a writer, and Ringwald, commonly referred to as Bev, is a fashion designer. They’re both super empathetic and caring. Bev’s an absolute movie fanatic and Bill’s weirdly enough super into true crime. If I suddenly go missing and am never found, you know who’ll be suspect number one.’ Richie jests.

‘So Stan’s the one I should be careful off?’

‘He’s actually really patient once you get to know him, he’s not that bad, but don’t tell him I said that.’

‘I bet he is. I mean, how else could he deal with hanging around you’, Eddie knocks their shoulders together, a heated touch Richie can distinguish even after Eddie lingered away. ‘Are- are you two dating?’ Eddie asks him, face open so sincerely innocent and unknowing to Richie’s inner turmoil.

‘Me and Stan? Fuck no,’ Richie guffaws, splaying his hand on top of the bar. ‘No, we’re just best friends.’ Stan, despite being an almost perfect human being, had never provoked such a reaction out of Richie. Good, because Stan is his best friend, and Richie would possible die without him by his side.

‘It’s a fair question’, Eddie shelters, crossing his arms in defiance.

‘No Eds, that was really stereotypical of you.’

‘You just gave a whole set with stereotypical jabs’, Eddie’s tone rises in the hysterics, scowl blistering with anger.

‘Yeah but I’m allowed because I’m gay Edward. That’s what makes it funny.’

‘It was not funny at all. Get yourself a new manager who isn’t afraid to tell you the truth.’

‘Really? Cause I could definitely hear you laughing during my bits.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Eddie smites, ‘You must’ve mistaken me for someone else. I was the one heckling you and throwing my food on the ground in protest.’

They burst out in laughter, wild amusement slouching up their veins.

‘You’re such a little shit’, Richie moves his hand, sticky with the leftover drink substance, and elongates to reach a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie with a mindboggling swift reaction shrieks, leaning away from Richie’s hand. ‘Don’t touch me.’ He breathes heavily, Richie, stunned with the turn of events, slants the other way.

‘I’m sorry’, he says fully meaning it, but also confused as to what he’s apologizing for.

Eddie ignores his apologies. ‘It’s the bar. You touched the bar and there’s way too many bacteria on there, so please don’t ever try to touch me after you’ve touched a germ manifestation ever again. I’m sorry, it’s a thing I have.’

Richie agrees vehemently. ‘Never’, he swears, and he’ll aspire to it. Eddie chuckles breathlessly. ‘We should go back, I’m sure the others are wondering where we are.’

‘Yeah, okay.’

Before they track back through the sea of people suddenly thirsty all at once, Eddie overlooks Richie with great interests. ‘You do know you’re really funny right? I haven’t had this much fun in ages.’

Eddie gets pushed aside by an asshole wearing sunglasses inside, and tirades about watching his step and being more considerate of others in an instant, in the span that Richie shuts offline, restarts and reboots. Eddie finds him funny, and he’s even admit to it, one of the first people who openly discloses to liking his stuff. At this rate, Richie might never survive this evening.

‘We should exchange numbers too,’ Eddie says as he delicately slaloms around various people.

‘Eum, yeah?’

‘Yeah, I think we’ve passed the stage of being strangers don’t you think?’

Scratch that. There’s no way Richie is ever going to remain alive to catch another sunrise.

\-------

They exchange numbers. All the newfound friends do, and they set up a group chat, affectionally named ‘the losers’ by Richie after getting a load of their humiliating high school story’s. Mike and Ben turn out to be extremely charming, but it all pales in comparison that Richie can now contact Eddie whenever he can. Because he’s a chicken shit, it’s not Richie but Eddie who gathers his courage and decides to message Richie privately first. All previous conversations had commenced in the mutual group, and Richie carefully calculated to never directly respond to anything Eddie posted in the chat.

Until Eddie sends him a direct message at 5:30 am, a simple ‘You up?’, that Richie by all means should ignore, but doesn’t.

‘sleep is for the weak Eds why’, Richie replies after waiting an exact five minutes as too not come across as desperate. He’s expecting at most a counter of something pertaining to Eddie’s work, but instead he receives a calling screen, complete with a close up of Eddie face after he drank one too many wines. He flounders in bed, kicking the sheets of his leg in a fast manner and racking his brain with excuses to not have to pick up the phone. He despises calling, a fear irrational but so real when his anxiety’s play up that he’s reverted to handing over his managers number to possibly interested sponsors. Unfortunately , the other side of his anxiety betrays him by filling his mind with possibilities in which Eddie could need genuine and urgent help. Situations where Eddie in enthralled that someone is awake at this ungodly hour to aid him in need.

With a grunt, Richie accepts the call and holds the phone up to his ear. ‘Hello?’

The sound of rain pattering outside and harsh footsteps reach Richie’s air, annexed with ragged breathing and a honking car.

‘You’re up early’, Eddie chooses to say, decidedly not in any danger. You fucking see now pathetic brain, Richie thinks to himself, would be rolling his eyes if he had any energy left besides clutching his cell.

A nightmare, not uncommon, is the reason why, but Richie never talks about them to anyone, and even if he did, unloading it on Eddie at this hour is not right. ‘I finished fucking your mom, we went all night. What about it?’ The joke is brazen, a result of the unpredicted way Richie was awoken. He’s always in a semi-sour mood if woken up too soon.

‘Shut the fuck up dickhead. I got to work early and the door to my office floor is still locked so I have to wait for the gatekeep. Don’t you fucking dare laugh at me.’

Richie yawns instead. ‘Who the fuck chooses to go to work sooner than they have too?’

‘Me, I’m behind on – oh great another one of those idiot who can’t drive- paperwork, and if I haven’t caught up by tonight my boss is going to lay in on me.’

‘Hmm’, Richie mumbles, eyes shutting and engrossing in Eddie’s explanation.

‘I wanted some company while I waited but I can hear you’re tired, I’ll let you sleep.’

‘No, it’s fine. I’m flattered you chose my phenomenal presence out of everyone you could’ve called.’

‘Don’t let it go to your head.’

‘What’s your favorite color?’ Richie rotates on his stomach, sinking in to the warm feeling of fluffy blankets and cloud imitations, his self-awareness slips away a bit more.

‘huh?’

‘Come on, Eduardo. If you plan on prolonging your permit as my friend, I have to know these crucial pieces of information.’

‘Very crucial, could really save my life one day. Excuse me sir, your friend is in a coma and might die, do you have information that could help us? Certainly, I know his favorite color is pink.’ Eddie attempts to do the voices, but Richie is secretly delighted that he can’t do them as well as he can. A way too impress Eddie as well as help him learn them.

‘Is pink your favorite color?’

‘Don’t mock me okay, but yes.’

‘I bet it looks really good on you.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing’, Richie hurries to correct, knocking the fist of his hands against his forehead. Fuck his sleep muddles brain that has no clue how to differentiate thoughts that are crucial to stay for himself and the ones that are allowed to be shared.

‘My favorite color is blue.’

‘Typical.’ Eddie chuckles. ‘Okay, my turn to ask the questions, and I will actually come up with a necessary one. Do you have any allergies?’

‘Nope, I’m as fit as a f-.’

‘Shit Rich I’m sorry. The concierge just arrived, I’m going to have to go.’

Richie fight his disappointment. ‘No worries Eds; hope you get your rapport done.’

‘Do you wanna continue this tonight?’ Eddie blurts out, so casually while Richie is dying inside.

‘I mean yeah, I didn’t know you’re that interested in little old me?’

‘I’ll call you after work? Around seven?’

‘Sounds good.’

The line cuts off noiselessly, and Richie is left to try and force his mind to quiet down against the onslaught of confusing interpretations. He ends up being unable to fall asleep.

\------

It turns into a habit. Every other day after Eddie’s work, he will dutifully call for at least an hour, ranting about his job and letting Richie vent about his, each asking questions to end the days hardships and learn more about the other. The more Eddie spills about his life and personality, the more Richie realizes that his imagination was below par to the real person Eddie Kaspbrak represents. Eddie monologues about his fear of germs, and how much he’s improved since his middle school years thanks to the support Mike and Ben gave him, and Richie reveals his combat with himself and how hard he tried to suppress his romantical intentions towards boys. Lighter stuff, like their preferred meals and where do go grocery shopping are brought up too, but the heavier topics are what lingers longer. They grow closer together, and the more they do, the more Richie fears he’s becoming exorbitantly attached.

‘What got you into it?’ Eddie asks while Richie is explaining why it’s important to get the right amount of dosage of water for harboring mint, puttering away in the allotments. It’s not a habit to call on Saturday, but Eddie was busy the day before, and Richie missed their interactive, forthcoming and amusing conversations too badly to forgo them for even a day.

‘Into what Eds?’

‘Just call me Eddie dude. It’s already a nickname, it doesn’t need another one. And I was talking about the whole botanical garden thing? It must have come from somewhere?’

Richie pauses, grateful that the phone prohibits Eddie from seeing the flash of hurt solemnizing. The memories of his mother, and the remnants of the way he treated her as a teenager bring along the everlasting regret and wish fulfillment of changing the past. He wasn’t a terrible son, at least he hoped he wasn’t, but he struggled with his sexuality and self-loathing so much that he despised everyone around his with as much vigor. Maggie tried engaging with him a lot, an astute woman like her had no problem reading her sons emotions, but that resulted in Richie mucking and retreating to his room.

They were on good terms when Maggie died, when Richie was twenty-three, but he never stopped regretting not spending more time with her doing the things they both loved to do. Vicky was different in that regard, and hung around their mother more often than not. In the same way Richie’s herb garden is to honor her, the garden shop was Vicky’s tribute.

‘Rich?’ Eddie questions down the line. He’s breathing more calmly then he did before, soothing almost as Richie gears himself to share a piece of the hurt with Eddie.

‘Yeah no I’m sorry. My mom loved doing this. I guess I got it from her.’

Loved, past tense, something that has come to be but is no longer there. Richie wants to change his words choice. She loves doing this, she’s never stopped. She’s simply in no position to keep up the delectation. 

‘Were you two close?’

There’s something dangerous hiding behind the words, and without fully knowing why, Richie senses they’ve entered a hazardous topic, a path in their friendship that has been unwalked so far.

‘Yes’, Richie says hesitantly, maybe for the first time in a very long time careful with what he’s saying to Eddie. ‘But we missed out on a long of things because of me.’

‘Me and my mom missed out on a lot of things too, but that was because of her.’ The heat Eddie portrays during discussions that mean a lot to him is missing, bizarre to say the least. He sounds defeated, whereas he was impassioned before, and it doesn’t set right with Richie, who wonders if he should pursue the topic or move on.

‘Tell me about her.’

‘My mom?’

‘Yeah. Was she nice? The type of woman to bake cookies and amuse your hobbies?’

‘Right on the money there Eds. She did bake chocolate chip cookies every Friday after school as a treat. Her name was Maggie and she adored tending to her flower and herb beds. Anytime she was invited anywhere she would collect a bouquet of flowers from the yard as a gift for the hosts’, Richie sighed sadly and abandoned his post to trudge outside in the cool fresh air, staring up at the sky that tingled with a bazillion stars.

‘She was the first one to truly believe in my dream of becoming a comedian. As a kid I’d recite my jokes and she’d listen and would clap, even to the really raunchy ones that should’ve never come out of my mouth. ’ Eddie chuckles, lodging Richie in the present instead of allowing him to float of in the past and dwell on thing that are set in stone.

‘It just sucks she died without knowing who I truly was.’

‘What do you mean? It sounds to me like she was a really good mom and loved you a lot.’

‘She was and she did, but I never had the guts to tell her I’m gay. Sometimes I wonder if she still would have loved me so much if she knew.’

‘Oh Richie.’

‘No, it’s fine. I’m being stupid and idiotic right now. Big shocker am I right? Instead of a find wally book they’ll need to write a story that’s titled: find a moment where Richie isn’t obtuse.’

‘You’re not being idiotic right now. You’re obtuse a fucking lot, but not right now.’

Richie fake plastered smile droops off his face, and his eyes sting with unreleased tears. ‘Fuck’, he curses digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. ‘She only saw parts of me you know. Never the full picture. I wanted her to know, but I was so scared she’d die being disappointed of me.’

‘Richie listen to me. I mean it, alright asshole? She did know you.’

‘Ed-‘

‘Shut up, I’m talking. I’m sure she knew to some extent that you were into men. It’s really hard to hide that stuff.’

Like you’d understand, Richie ponders bitterly, but he forces the comment away. It’s not fair to Eddie for him to lash out when he’s trying to help.

‘I don’t think anyone is capable of fully apprizing someone, but she knew enough. You’re her son, and if that wasn’t good enough for her to care for you, whether you’re interested in men or women, than she’s not worth your sorrow. But Richie, I think you know well enough she would accept you. I don’t think you could draw that much strength out of yourself to come out if you didn’t.’

Riche sniffs dignified, perceiving the words as to be true, but still coated in a layer of big fat self-doubt. ‘Thanks Eds.’

A silence settles over the peaceful dark sky, and their conversations hit a lull, quieted by the heavy confessions made that night. And Eddie decides they’re not finished yet.

‘My mom forced me stay home a lot from school.’

‘Shit Spagheddie really? That’s awesome. Tell me, what adventures did little Eddie go on while playing hooky? I wish we grew up in the same town, we could have had so much fun.’

‘No,’ a breathless laugh that’s suspiciously like a preemptive panic attack dins. ‘Not in the fun way.’ Eddie sniffles, and Richie’s heart sinks. ‘She… she made me think I was really sick, all the time. Convinced me I had all these allergies and asthma and all that so I wouldn’t be going out with my friends. I can count on one hand how many times I was allowed to stay out past seven pm.’

‘Shit Eddie.’

‘Don’t. Don’t you dare feel sorry for me Tozier, I only told you because I trust you to treat me the same you always did.’

‘Of course Eds, whatever you say.’

‘Mike and Ben stayed by my side through it all. They helped me move out of the house and into a college dorm room, ignoring my mom screaming so hard you would have thought there was a murder taking place. At that point I don’t think I’d been away from her for longer than a day. That’s why I freaked out that night at the bar. She instilled that any germs equalized sickness and that generalized into being afraid of pretty much anything.’

Richie scrambles his brain to think of something to reply with. He’s not equipped to deal with this, he zones out at important topics and elevates the connection between his brain and his mouth in a heartbeat if it means avoiding an uncomfortable situation, and the stress of needing to find a meaningful response blankness his cognitive thinking surplus. Eddie did mention however that he preferred Richie to stay the same as he was before. And that is something Richie can do for him.

‘Was she at least hot?’

‘What the actual fuck Richie?’

‘Oh come on. If you’re spending so much time with a person that time is better spend with someone hot than someone who looks like a walking nightmare. If you inherited a slight frictions of her beauty she must be.’

‘She’s my mother that’s absolutely disgusting.’

‘For you maybe but I’m a free man.’

‘Correction; a free gay man.’

Peals of laughter swapped between them helped with the underlying pressure, swerved them back in known territory.

‘You’re really brave Eds,’ Richie admits, because Eddie is, in so many more ways than defying his mother alone. The adventures he went on as a kid, and the way he is filled with aggressions but also spiked up to the brim with kindness for his friends, and the willingness to take care of them. He’s a beautiful bastard and it kills Richie that he’ll never be able to truly convey that to him the way he longs to do. Eddie ignores him.

‘Worst part of it is that once I finally ripped her pryingly finger off of me, I turned around and let another woman do the same.’

The implications that it’s Eddie’s wife, Myra, he’s discussing are clearly up for grabs, but Richie scorns the bait down. Whatever happens in between Eddie’s and Myra’s private life is none of his business, especially considering the way Richie’s flirtations are only justified in his mind because Myra might as well be a figment of his imagination, someone he has never met and therefor can consider not real until the day he meets her face to fac e- if that even were to happen at all-.

Eddie rarely mentions her as it is, nothing more but a passover in their conversations that occurs while one of them in not consciously taking part, or whenever he’s complaining about her, and Richie is beyond grateful for that. He’s selfish. Eddie brings up his wife, a venting session, but Richie shuts down on him.

‘Are you going to the party this Friday?’ Eddie asks equivocal, sensing the hesitation on Richie’s part of responding to his previous statement.

‘Obviously Edmund. I know we’re all friends now but me and Bev go way back. There’s no way I’m letting you overshadow our friendship mister. Think again.’

‘Your friendship with Bev? I recall you saying that it was our friendship you valued most’, Eddie teases, the involuntary eyebrow lifting as he patiently challenges and awaits Richie’s answer. Richie can’t physically see it, but he definitely knows it’s happening. It’s true, Richie did acknowledge that in a way him and Eddie had the same band in a matter of weeks that took years to build with his other friends, dense as he is, but Eddie took on board this information and agreed that yes, though it’s peculiar, he returned the sentiment. 

‘Aw Eddie Spagheddie. Fighting over my attention already? Be wary, Beverly fights dirty.’

‘Please, you’ve seen my tyrants on the road haven’t you? So do I.’

Obviously Eddie doesn’t mean anything by it, but Richie can’t help but envision an alternate universe where Eddie would be ready to fight for him as lovers do, and it makes Richie feel sad.

‘Yeah I’m going, are you?’

‘Duh, I wouldn’t have asked you if I wouldn’t. Is she any good? Like do I need to prepare myself to walk around her new clothing line and lie about the artistic vibes it radiates?’

‘Dude, it’s a new clothing line she’s presenting, it’s not an art gallery’, Richie snorts, ‘but also she’s amazing. Better at matching clothes and designing new ones that I’ve ever seen. She’s gonna make it big.’

‘Good, she deserves it.’

‘Eds’, Richie whines petulantly, ‘stop hogging my friends.’

‘We share the same friends now asswipe.’

A vacuum is engaged on Eddie’s side, loud, buzzing and distracting. ‘Are you seriously cleaning whilst talking to me?’

‘No, it’s my fucking neighbor. He only cleans in the evening apparently with no fucking regards for others.’

‘It sounds like it’s coming from right beside you Eds. You’d think with all the money you earn you’d be able to afford your wife a separate home.’

‘Yeah’, A strain coats the word. ‘Anyway, I’ll let you get on with it now, it’s getting late and I can barely hear you over all this ruckus. Text me when you get home safe.’

‘Why? Are you worried about little old me?’

‘I care about all my friends asshole so yes I am, but if you don’t stop using that horrendous Geordie accent I won’t for much longer. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye Eds’, Richie mimics, the Geordie accent remaining.

\------------

The venue of Beverly’s new clothing line set-up celebration is so gigantic Richie has a hard time believing he’ll ever find his friends in the masses. He’s been carrying the same glass of on brand champagne in his hand ever since setting foot on the location, sipping lightly and making small talk with whoever addresses him first.

Searching for his friends so he doesn’t remain the strange loner for the entire party is a good idea, but he’s found a good hiding spot, where the lights don’t shine quite bright enough to lit up his section of the corner, and if he steps out and can’t spot them, he’ll be left out in the open for everyone to see.

He’d text them, but his phone died on the way, and he’s not about to bend down in the middle of a gala to sit down toddler-wise and wait for his phone to charge, only to then struggle back up with a bad back and walk over to his friends. He has standards, he’ll have you know.

The venue is, by Richie’s standards, grand enough to be a mansion. The place has an open concept with very little walls separating different the different areas, is two stories high, and has a garden that stretches far beyond Richie immediate vision.

On the second floor Bev stalled all her fashion creations, allowing a loop of people passing through and admiring them before heading downstairs and drinking away the bad taste of spending money they don’t have to keep up appearances. Most of the guests are rich couples who scamper around and loudly proclaim what item they bought from Bev’s collection as if to prove to others that they can buy anything they choose to. Is it tacky of them? Sure, but does it also help ups sales for Beverly’s clothes and Richie therefor doesn’t care? Also yes.

There’s casual, soft music droning in the background, not the type Richie usually entertains, but by lack of other entertainment, Richie sways back and forth airily on the beat of the melody.

He already passed every article of Bev’s new stuff, has even committed himself to a dress shirt that he swore he’d wear during his next stand up, but now he’s ready to head home. Showing up and conversing around was bad enough as it is, but being on his own while doing it is worse. He supported Bev to the best of his abilities, but staying for a drink or abending ship and hitting the hay really won’t make a difference for a woman as busy as her. She wouldn’t notice that Richie left anyway, not with the large quantity of visitors and enormous ground to cover.

He swallows the leftover champagne, and swings it over on a nearby waiters plateau, declining another glass as it’s offered to him.

‘Bev’s going to kill you if you leave in the middle of this.’ Stanley slides in next to Richie effortlessly, blocking the path out to the door. He’s smiling easily enough, but Richie senses that Stan is about as done as he is. Losing his composure is never an option for Stan though, and he’ll be damned to leave before Beverly does. Richie perches his lips in the beginning of a scolding, about ready to share his thoughts on being left alone all by himself, but he’s worried Stan might take it seriously and a fight will occur.

‘Oh so now you show up?’

‘I have better things to do then to search for you all night.’

‘Auh Stan, and here I was thinking we had something special?’ Richie cups over his hand, sniffling obnoxiously.

‘No we don’t.’

‘Are you really breaking up with me? In public?’ A group of people exchange shocked glances, probably expecting the relationship to be real and turn to whisper amongst themselves. Richie is elated with the development and plans to make a show out of it, but Stan steers him away before Richie’s done acting.

‘Seriously, don’t leave, you’re not sappy yet, so you aren’t even on drink number two and Bev hasn’t had the chance to talk to you yet.’

‘Weird that you memorized the stages of my drunkenness Urine, but for your information, I’m actually in the clear. Bev will never be aware I left because I have an amazing best friend who will vouch for me.’

‘Really? Is that why she’s been on the hunt for Eddie thinking you would be with him?’

Stan is a bastard on the best of days, deadpanning on every answer and pointing out Richie’s flaws in order to give him the option to better himself and improve. He’s the first one to admit a performances sucked and the last one to give vocal praise, but he’s also Richie’s best friend and gatekeeper.

He’s more conscious of Richie than anyone else, retracting his true insecurities and beneficiating them so they go away, protecting him from harsh wording and keeping Richie’s scattered thoughts from impulsive decisions. He detects when he should keep pushing and when to back off.

Really, it should come as no surprise that he’s figured out that Richie is doomed for Eddie in every single way, but no matter how close they are, Richie’s first instinct is to deny any and all implications of his gay crush.

‘Why would I be with Eddie?’ He asks like a chicken without a head, fooling absolutely no one. It’s common knowledge at this point that Eddie draws him out of the house more than anyone has ever been able to and placate the primal urge Richie has to hide himself from the world. 

Stan entertains the excuse for not a moment, raising his arm and gesturing towards the garden door. ‘Let’s go find them then, I’m sure you’d love to say hello.’

Richie steps forward two times, then plants his feet in the ground, racking his brain to find excuses that will get him out of having to greet Eddie. Because yes, while he and Eddie have been growing closer and Richie heart palpitates at a callout of Eddie’s name, Bev’s clothing line is for women, and it would only make sense that Eddie would bring his wife to join him for this event.

Getting introduced to Eddie’s wife is dangerous territory, a crossover between what he wants most in his daydream and reality. Richie is not a jealous person, but he’s not in the mood to watch the two hang all over each other while he sulks and sliders away from them so they don’t notice. He pictures the pair, either holding hands or Eddie’s arm glued around her waist, listening to the information Bev provides her on the clothes, Eddie reaching for his wallet and buying whichever item Myra point out first, stealing a kiss from her under Bev’s cooing.

No, seeing Eddie today would be a very bad idea.

‘Why would I be with Eddie he asks.’ Stan rolls his eyes, tapping his shoe on the floor impatiently. ‘Look, if you go with me and greet both Eddie and Beverly’, Stan raises one finger daringly when Richie opens his mouth to retort, ’I will vouch for you for the rest of the night.’

The offer is tempting, there’s no way Bev won’t believe Stan when he swears something and getting home early is a dream, but the stakes are high and Richie isn’t sure the deal is worth the aggravation of a rejection.

‘How long will I have to talk to them?’ Richie whines, barely refraining from stomping his feet.

‘Just long enough to be polite.’

‘Fine, where are they?’

They are on the second floor, secluded from the rest of the guests, and hidden behind a huge pillar that conceal the both of them. It’s no wonder Richie obliviously walked past them and couldn’t find them anywhere.

Eddie is sporting a golden embowered dress shirt, sleeves rolled up so his forearms are visible. A black dress pants and glamming shoes top off the look completely, styles yet work casual at the same time. He looks stunning, wearing a ten thousand dollar watch on his left wrist. And Myra… is wearing nothing, because she’s not there.

‘Bevie,’ Richie yells ecstatic, coming up behind her and swarming her in a bear hug. Eddie blinks in surprise, not having noticed Stan and Richie coming up.

Bev pats him on the arm, craning her neck back so she can look up at his face with a difficult angle. ‘There you are, I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show.’

‘Moi?’ Richie asks faux disbenefited. ‘How can I not show for this haut-couture vêtements or something french?’

‘Beep beep Richie, I know you don’t care about any of this so I’m really happy you came for me.’

He gifts Bev a smacking cheek kiss, not willing to verbally give up defeat. Then he dislodges himself from Bev and Eddie.

‘Eds, looking good as ever. Is it me or do you look taller somehow? Do those shoes come with a secret high heel inside of them?’ The introduction is more stiff than it has ever been, more so then their first meeting. Perhaps it has something to do with Richie holding back because of Eddie’s wife accounted for in the near proximity, or Eddie’s reluctance to introduce anyone to Richie, yellow dress shirt and shoes and all.

Both inch closer, step back and inch closer again, as if they’re about to hug but both don’t find it a good idea. In the end, they just laugh elated and stand stiff on either sides of Bev and Stan, their own secret circle.

‘So?’

‘So what?’

‘Where is misses Kaspbrak? I desperately need some new material for my spank bank.’

‘Fuck you dude.’

‘What? Is this not her style? Are you guessing what she’d prefer? I’d help you, you know since gay men are supposed to be good at styling, but’, he points to his yellow shirt, ‘I’m clearly not a part of that stereotype.’

Bev shakes her head discreetly, but Richie can’t decipher what she means by that. He doesn’t need to wait long to find out.

‘No I’m not buying anything for my wife, or is she here Richard, for the simple reason that we are separated. There no more wife to get anything for.’

The admission is not what Richie was expecting at all, and regret build in his gut. Richie might be foul mounted, and he also annoys people with his words to no end, but he never seeks out to hurt people, ever. ‘Shit, I’m sorry.’ He bites the his fist to stop the incoming ramble of apologize and jabs that will make the situations worse, but Eddie laughs, more an exhale, and punches Richie is the arm softly.

‘I’m sorry too Eddie,’ Stan follows solemnly.

‘It’s okay, really. Myra and I- we- it was a long time coming.’

For one unforgivable moment, Richie is elated. Eddie is no longer married, Eddie is single, he’s no longer tied to a person. Guilt overtakes his as soon as he’s finished thinking it. Eddie is single, but that doesn’t change anything about his straightness nor does it alter the chance Richie has with him. Not to mention that he just divorced her not that long ago, and Richie, even if Eddie was gay which he’s not, can’t take advantage of his emotional state.

He jokes to escape his mind, feeling grossly dirty again, like he did something wrong and is waiting for the impending punishment for being a bad person.

‘Sorry “bout that Eddie, but look at this way, now you can dust off your flirtatious moves. Which woman wouldn’t fall for that?’ God knows Richie fell for him without Eddie having to lift a finger. ‘We should drink to celebrate you’re a free man, where are the waiters? I’m ordering vodka.’

If it’s not the right response to a situation like this one, Richie has never been told about a divorce before, Eddie doesn’t let it affect him. He smiles and murmurs a ‘fuck yeah’, flagging down a waiter. For the first time, Richie picks up on his ring being absent.

\------------

The fire that rages through the garden center burns everything in its path. It starts in the backroom, and is contained by a dozen of firemen under scrutiny of gossiping onlookers before it can spread to the main part of the shop, but the months hard work Richie devoted to fumbling with his allotment, is gone up in smoke. Destroyed by the one thing Richie hadn’t taken into consideration. It’s heavy irony, Richie double checking every lock on the door so there was no way for an outbreak of pests, and remote controlling the air-condition in the space from miles away so the plants couldn’t dry out by mistake, to give a few examples of how cautious he was, only for the one thing beyond his control to happen and take away everything with it. 

Vicky wakes him at approximately four in the morning, banging on the door with a crazed timorous, pajama bands sliding of her shoulders and she’s not bothering to readjust them. She’s never appeared so dishevel before, except when she was at his apartment watching a movie while her water suddenly broke, and the tempered room turned into a screaming match of instructions Richie had to obey to the letter. Then she’d been worried, but also ardent, now she’s only besides herself.

‘Richie’, she says as soon as he creaks open the door. She’s hugging her arms to her chest, jumping from one foot to the other, and upon seeing Richie she sobs harder. The sleepy haze Richie had fallen prey under dissipates, forcing Richie to endure the petrification without softening.

‘What’s wrong?’ He asks, grabbing his coat from besides the door and shrugging it on, feeling in his gut that they needed to be fast.

‘My building is going up in flames. The police called and told me I have to get over there. Richie, please go with me, I can’t go alone. I - I can’t drive that far, it’s too- ’

Richie nods furiously, ‘Fuck, shit okay yeah’, slamming his door shut and ushering the two of them over to his car, too crazed to consider taking his phone or house-keys with him. Vicky gets in the passenger’s seat, wordlessly giving Richie full permission to take control of the situation. All her life savings are invested in the shop, every last dime and penny she saved beginning in her teenage years, earning it through various desk jobs and shitty chores no one else could be tricked into completing.

That’s how dedicated she was and remains to this day, and Richie can’t even begin to comprehend what she’ll do without the shop. Obviously, Richie has enough money now that she won’t have a thing to worry about on that department, but money isn’t everything and the garden shop is more than a way to receive income, it’s a way to practice her passion.

He shoves the keys next to the ignition twice, and where Victoria would normally chastise him for this and tell him be more leisure, she’s busy sobbing in her hands, continuously muttering; ‘no please no’, to even be aware that Richie’s not driving yet.

He stops trying and inhales deeply, holding for four counts and then exhaling for another four, managing to slot the keys in place on the first try after that. He resigns himself to thinking about all the consequences later, and to focus on the road and getting them there in one piece. For once, he’s expected to take on the roll as older, more mature sibling, and he can’t let Vicky down.

They drive for ten minutes in silence, only interrupted by sniffles and blubbering, and Richie has no idea what to say to make this all better.

The smoke looms up above them the closer they get, setting Vicky off in another crying fit. The dark ashen grey clouds float all the way up into the sky, a literal thundercloud goading them, and Richie races up above the speed limit to get there faster.

He is stopped by metal fences guarded by the police to refrain gossipers from getting to close, to the burning mayhem, so he opens all breaks and skids to a halt. The car is still sliding when Vicky opens the door and tumbles out, followed closely by Richie who is so shaken he forgets to lock the doors.

They push aside the onlookers and try to worm their way through the gates, but a police officer stops them in their tracks, withholding them from where they need to be. ‘You can’t go any further’, one of them says, a rather old guy with a name tag that says; Packard, and there’s a joke in that but Richie can’t make himself say or even think about it. 

‘Yes, I know but we own that building please, we’ve been contacted to come here, I need to see what’s going on.’ Richie is a little ticked that the guy can see how upset his sister is but not even acknowledges it, and doesn’t apologize for his previous attitude once he’s informed she is in fact supposed to go on. Whatever, he’s got bigger fish to fry.

‘Victoria Tozier?’ Vicky nods. ‘Alright, go over to my colleague over there, but no further than her or I will have you removed from the scene.’

He points towards a younger, female officer, far more professional looking and regarding the scene from a distance, far enough that she’s out of the line of fire, but adjacent enough that she can keep an eye on things. Packard opens the gates so Vicky and him can slip in between, flipping it back in its original position soon after. Vicky grabs Richie by the wrist, digging in so deep Richie can sense the forming indents, but it’s okay. He’s terrified too. After passing the blockade, their view of the building clears itself from any interruptions, and they get their first proper look at the condemned fire.

There’s no actual visible flames, but the windows are cracked and the remnants scattered on the gravel of the parking lot. A thick black smoke cloud wafts outside accompanied by the horrific smell of burned rubber, obstructing any view of inside the shop and leaving it up for the worst interpretation. ‘Oh my god Richie,’ Vicky whimpers, speeding up her step and approaching the officer with a shell shocked face. The warmth radiates all the way over to them, devilish in its intensity.

‘Excuse me’, she yells towards the police officer, who straitens and hold her hands up in surrender.

‘Miss Tozier?’

‘Yes I-‘

‘Please know that everything that we can do at this time is being done, it would be in all of our best interested for you to stay calm.’

‘How can I stay calm? Please enlighten me in how I’m supposed to step on the backburner and become calm.’ Richie has never witnessed Victoria being so agitated, so willing to attack anyone to adieu the excess nerves she’s experiencing.

‘Vicks-‘ Richie pacifies by placing his hand on top of her shoulder blades, and angling her vision away from the scene. ‘Breath, alright? Remember when mom thought she had accidently set the kitchen on fire and she panicked but it turned out dad ignited the barbeque and that was where all the smoke was coming from? This could be that same situation, it might be fine.’ He initiations eye contact until she nods and shuts her mouth, but neither her nor Richie are pacified by his feeble attempt of a throwaway joke.

‘What’s the verdict?’ He address the officer, though he’s unsure if she’s updated on the status. From the corner of his eyes, he can see several fireman running in the building with firehoses and protected gear, salvaging whatever is left of his sisters hard work.

‘There’s a lot of uncertainty remaining, and there will be to the best of my knowledge not be anything conformed before dawn. So far however it appears that the most damage has taken place in the storage room and according to the latest summary I have been briefed on, the fire is contained. We will have to wait for the smoke to clear, but it seems that the largest part of the store is without damages.’

‘Oh thank goodness’, Vicky breathes, whipping her tears away in a frenzy before she processes the words thoroughly. ’Shit Richie I’m sorry.’

‘No don’t be. Of course you’re happy the majority of the shop is saved.’ Richie is happy for her too, objectively, but that’s hard to focus on when the realization sinks in that all his work has evaporated. All the hours of rushing to finish another part of the box and sprinkling it in with compost so they’d have the best shot of coming out fresh and clean gone without considerations, stolen without a proper ending or goodbye. Every Saturday wasted and the connection to his mother severed in a blink.

‘How did this fire even start? I always double check to make sure nothing is on.’

‘A neighbor called to report two thirteen year old boys roughhousing in the parking lot. They were using fireworks to amuse themselves and she wanted it to be reported so they wouldn’t hurt them or any third party. Ten minutes later she frantically called again to inform us that the fireworks started a fire.’

She knocks her head sideways to show the two boys, next to a cop care being held watch by the police officers. Richie’s heart shrinks. They looks positively stupefied, spooked within an inch of their life as they wait for the inevitable scolding and punishment both inflicted by their parents and the police.

They’re a mirror image of Richie, stupid enough to try something reckless, but lacking malicious intent, amazed at the outcome of some of the things he’d done. Searching for any way to alleviate his guilt on the matter. He hopes the parents are lenient, if only because they’ve all been kids once, dense and not understanding.

‘It is up to you to press charges against them for negligent, but I will give you time to think that over. If you take this to trail, they will be given a fine and perhaps community service.’

No, Richie itches to say immediately, but ultimately Vicky own the store, and she should be the one to decide that. The siblings share a glance and conclude unanimously that they will not do such a thing.

‘Miss Tozier, as beneficiary of the store there are a few steps you need to complete as fast as possible. Perhaps now if you are able to handle it. I could drive you to the stations and get things over with.’

Vicky squeezes her eyes shut, throwing her arm over her forehead. ‘Oh the insurance. That’s going to be a nuisance.’ She groans from deep within her chest. ‘Yes, let’s get this over with.’

‘I’ll come with’, Richie offers, only to be stopped by a withholding hand of Vicky.

‘No, that’s okay Rich. I appreciate you driving me here but it’s late and there’s nothing else you can do right now. Go home.’

‘But-‘, Richie backs off, the night has been long and a dizziness is creeping up behind him, and hiding under blankets and not showing his face for a few days sounds very appealing. ‘Yes mother. Call me if you request my presence.’

‘I will.’

‘Sir, you need to step back behind the line now’, he gets instructed and so he goes, unseeing and weirdly detached from everything that’s happening around him. Now he no longer has to put on a front for his siter, the full levity of the situation truly hits him.

He bumps into the barrier, under the crooked watch of the many onlookers, with a poorly spoken ‘move’, it vocalizing weird and distorted.

He walks on purely relying on muscle memories, so caught up in his own head, though no contemplation is going on up there, that he passes his car and never bothers to slow down.

‘Richie’, he hears originating from behind him, distinctively Eddie’s voice, but that doesn’t faze him either, writing it off as a figment of his imagination. ‘Richie’, he discerns again, but it’s the hand gripping his bicep that draws him out of his head.

It is in fact Eddie, in jogging pants and a worn out sweater, color drained from washing it too many times, ruffling Richie’s body to gain some reaction from the taller man.

‘Rich you should sit down.’

‘Huh’? He dumbly asks, letting himself be led by the arm to the side walk. He refuses to sit down, thinking that there’s good possibility he may not be able to get up again. The queasiness spreads to his stomach.

‘Are you okay?’ Eddie demands, ‘Is it bad? the fire?’

‘It’s fine,’ Richie assures quickly, the retaliation automatic and not well thought through. ‘I mean… It’s not fine but..’

‘Don’t hurt yourself Rich,’ Eddie teases, but his grin falters as Richie only stares up at him.

‘There’s not a lot of damage, as far as they’re concerned.’

‘Great, that’s great Richie.’

‘How are you here? It’s like late right?’

‘I – Yeah, it’s really late but I live close by now and the sirens woke me up. I saw them stopping in front and I panicked so I came out too.’ He’s blushing, Richie can tell, street light illuminating his face enough that it gets picked up. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

Richie can’t answer, occupied with swallowing back the loaf of bile forcing its way up, hand digging around his mouth to stop it from opening.

‘Richie shit, sit down dude. I think you might be in shock.’

‘Don’t you have to be in a car accident for that to happen?’

‘No, all it takes is being under duress, which you fucking are so for the love of god sit down.’

Richie shakes his head but stumbles, foot catching on nothing but tripping him up none the less. Eddie has to throw his entire body weight in the game to falter his crash, sinking down with Richie in effort when the burden becomes too much to bear.

Richie is practically on his lap, all 6’2” inches of him crouched to fit.

‘Should I call an ambulance? Is your pulse still regular or is it too fast?’ Eddie presses his finger under Richie’s chin, searching for a pulse he can check and antagonize over. ‘Look at me’, he demands, leaning up close to get a good look of his pupils. ‘I was right’, he says after concluding his investigation, ‘You’re definitely in shock. I’m going to call an ambulance.’

‘No’, Richie groans, shuffling up on his knees and them pushing himself off the pavement. He doesn’t ask, but is appreciative when Eddie steadies him. ‘I’ll just sleep it off in my apartment.’

He fishes for the keys in his pocket, movements sluggish and uncoordinated, frowning as he can only touch the keychain to his car. The keychain of his car is decorated with a cars sticker, that Dylan stuck to it as a toddler and cried when Richie tried to scrape it away. He delves them out, then gropes in his pocket again to confirm.

Eddie purses his lips, staring at Richie struggling. ‘Fine, but only if you let me drive.’

‘Fuck no Eds, not with the way you drive.’ But the keys fall between his fingers like sand, and he stares helplessly as they tumble on the street. ‘Fuck’ he curses, but dismisses the idea of bending down and getting them. If he does, there’s no way he won’t plummet on his back and draw out this ridiculous display of ego protection.

Eddie shakes his head disappointed, and reaches down to grab them for himself, holding it out of reach from Richie. ‘If you can steal them back from me, I’ll let you drive.’

Instantly, Richie relinquishes his right to drive. ‘Fine, but you better drive slow.’

‘I’m a good driver, it’s not my fault you don’t drive enough to see that.’

Eddie slides his arm around Richie’s middle, trying to hold him upright and walk in a straight line at the same time. ‘I’m not that bad you know’, Richie tries but Eddie ignores his words and hauls him faster to his car.

‘Give me your house keys,’ Eddie demands once he disposes of Richie in the passenger seat and has secured his seat belt. ‘That’s one less thing you have to worry about.’ Richie stays quiet.

‘I’m 90% sure I forgot them in my apartment’, Richie mumbles innocently, as virtuous as he can.

‘What? What the fuck where you gonna do once I dropped you off? Sleep outside your door until the morning?’

Richie closes his eyes against the onslaught of dizziness, resting his head against the backseat. ‘Maybe.’

‘Idiot.’ Eddie rumbles, doused in affection, softly closing the door and walking over to the other side of the car, where he gets in and adjust the seat so he can reach the steering wheel comfortably.

‘Tiny’, Richie teases, still with his eyes shut.

‘You’re not feeling well, so I’m going to let that slide but know that if you were fine, I would have punched you for that.’

‘No you wouldn’t.’

‘No I wouldn’t have.’ Richie grins, nauseousness receding at Eddie’s kind words. 

Is it okay if I take you to my place until morning? You can call a locksmith from there?’

‘You don’t mind?’

‘Of course not Rich,’ after a beat Eddie adds, ‘what are friends for?’

Richie’s golden cloud pops, the reality a lot less rose colored than Richie’s hopes. Friends, because that’s all he’ll ever be from Eddie’s standpoint.

\-------

Richie honors his promise of creeping away under his bed covers for a few days, going as far as to cancel his phone calls with Eddie and ignoring Stan and Bev and their endless check ins. The only person he is in touch with, in the seven days he dubbed his ‘martyr days’, is his sister. They mostly discuss the damage and how they will get things back on track, because it turns out the cop was right, the area for customers was spared and therefor they can reopen in less than three weeks. An offer to go help out and clean the debris left over by the fire is denied, as Vicky has employed contractors to do the job for them. For the best perhaps, the empty space that hosted his allotment may only further dig in Richie’s open wounds.

Vicky negotiates with the insurance company a lot and afterwards she’ll ring Richie, to rant about those fucking lowlifes who would rather set the money on fire than give it to people in need. Their interactions don’t last long and are often cut short when she tries to bring up the topic of starting a new herb garden. Richie is too stubborn to listen and has already resided himself to leaving Saturdays open to become one with the couch and addicted to the television, instead of beginning all anew.

He’s aware that he can’t hide from the outside world forever, but he can enjoy the time he has to wallow in self-pity. It’s pathetic really, especially compared to the way his sister is behaving, full of ethic and ready to fly straight back in the game. It’s just that he began working on the allotment a mere week after his mother died, as a way to say goodbye to her that Richie hadn’t been able to put into words. She’d never joined him in tolling on those specific herbs, but to Richie it still felt that way. Ripping away the herbs was like reopening the wound of losing his mother. He’s allowed to grieve something he thoroughly enjoyed doing.

Eddie disagrees, or at least that’s what Richie assumes watching another call flash upon his phone, the ninth from the day. It’s not as if Richie ghosted him, he’d explained what he was going to be up to these days the morning after the fire, and while Eddie made a noise of protest, a charming sound that had no business arising from such a gremlin, he had let Richie leave discussion free to go meet the locksmith at his house.

Richie fumbles the phone around, trying to get back to watching a YouTube video explaining what to do if you’re buried alive, and no he cannot account how he got to that particular clip, but the only way he knows how to do that is to decline the phone, and Eddie will be so piqued at him for doing that.

Eddie is fucking persistent to the bone though, and it’s getting to the point where Richie skin begins to crawl and worst case scenarios begin to pop up in his brain. Eddie could be calling to tell him somethings amiss with him, or that the shop is worse off than he originally thought and because nobody could reach him they contacted Eddie who is trying to pass the message along anyway… The sea of scary, bad occurrences are endless, but Richie’s mind has no shortage of possibilities.

Still, he waits for the another call to connect, leg bouncing up and down with unspoken fearfulness. In case of an emergence Eddie would leave a voicemail right?

The absolute haunting punches of a leg being kicked against Richie’s door spooks him tremendously, so bad that the fright flails him off the couch and onto the carpet bellow. Richie’s heart hammers in his chest, too weak limbed to tug himself upright. The phone stops ringing.

A second pounding reverberates thought Richie’s body, the unknown individual behind the door using so much force it can’t be anything other than a foot thrashing his door.

‘You fucking asshole. First you don’t pick up your phone, and now you’re going to Ignore me when I’m in front of your door? Well sucks for you, ‘cause I’m not going anywhere until you’ve shown your face Tozier.’

The strength in his muscles returns fastidious. Eddie is in front of his door, to give Richie an ass- whooping if the curse words are anything to go by.

‘Eddie?’

‘Yes of fucking course it’s Eddie. Open the door Trashmouth so I can yell in your face.’

His neighbor is also outside, Richie sees when he opens the door. She shushes the both of them loudly, yet Richie hasn’t said anything, and then slammed the door shut with angry grumbling.

Eddie stares at the door and then back at Richie, shrugging apologetic, then pushes his way in Richie’s apartment.

‘What the fuck man? Sure invite yourself in.’

‘You clearly weren’t about to offer, so I had to take it upon myself.’

The state of Richie’s apartment is not something to be proud of, to say the least. The blanket he’d been using to warm himself on the couch is haphazardly thrown in a heap on the floor, the place smells like Chinese takeaway meals, and Richie’s been too lazy to fold and put away his clothes.

‘Christ you live in here? Ever heard of opening a window to let the air in? Or cleaning? We gotta fix that sometime. My new place isn’t much better but at least I don’t fester any health violations.’

Eddie regards him sternly, the pinched brow validates that he’s not messing around. His hands are closed around his hips, eyes roaming the room. Admittedly, the room is not exactly clean cut, but it’s not nearly a health violations the way Eddie claims it to be.

‘Have you just been in here this whole time? Throwing yourself a pity party? Christ Rich I thought you were better than that.’

‘I am,’ Richie says defensively, but he really isn’t.

‘I don’t believe you. But whatever, get changed, clean up and throw on your shoes, I need to show you something.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To a fucking place Richie. Come on. Don’t you trust me?’

And fuck, Eddie can try to kill him and then repeat the question, and the answer will still be yes. Reluctantly, Richie tears himself away from his spot, snatching a shirt that was layed on the floor, the revolting look from Eddie burning holes in his back.

‘Be right back’, he promises as he hides out in the bathroom, the cool breeze of being wanted and cared for sweeping past him.

‘Don’t you dare lock yourself in there, I will break down the door if you don’t emerge fast enough.’

\-----

A fucking place is, in Eddie’s vocabulary, a synonym to his new apartment, located smack in between Richie’s home and the garden center. Eddie drives, refusing to let Richie drive his three thousand dollar SUV, and leads the way up from the parking lot to the sixth floor, choosing the stairs in lieu of the elevator, loaded with a giddy static that makes his hand shake. His hand trembles so much he misses the keyhole of his apartment the first three times, and snaps at Richie when he offers to do it for him. The fourth try, probably purely out of spite, he’s able to do it, sticking out his tongue at Richie in a childish matter.

It’s fairly obvious that Eddie hasn’t found his spot in the apartment yet. In every way Richie’s place is messy and vibrant, Eddie’s is dull and monotone, the counter and table so bare that it might as well have been a photo from a catalog. 

It’s not ugly, in the very definition; the white walls, marble tables and black furniture give the room a futuristic design, but it’s not a place Richie would like the live in all the time. Not with the way it’s so devoid of any personality.

Eddie discards his keys in the pocket of his jacket, hanging it on a coat rack by the door. He waits for Richie to join him, then smiles up at him skittish. The timid posture is overleaping upon Richie too, and he’s anxiously trying to get his brain to function and determine why Eddie is behaving the way he is. He seemed fine back at Richie’s place.

‘Look Eds is this what you wanted to show me? The apartment? Because I’ve seen the pictures before and told you it’s neat.’

‘No of course not. Why would I drive you all the way over here to see something that is nothing special? I told you I have a surprise for you. Just promise me right now you won’t make fun of it.’ Eddie snaps, hand whizzing through the air. His defensive trademark is not masking the extremely present ambivalence.

‘Why? Is it something to be taunted for? Is it your stuffed bear collection?’ Richie gasps. ‘Are you about to introduce me to your porn collection? Edward?’

‘I have never meant it as much as I do now, shut the fuck up.’

Richie belly laughs, but mimes zipping his lips shut straight after. ‘Aye aye captain.’

‘You are incapable of being quiet for longer than a second aren’t you? How do you sleep at night?’

‘On my back.’ Richie says earnestly. ‘If I sleep on my stomach I barf during the night.’

Eddie gages, waving away the imaginary visualization. ‘That’s more information then I fucking needed.’

‘You asked.’

‘Not about that. It doesn’t fucking matter anyway. Crouch.’

The command is so sudden and unexpected Richie crunches out of reflex, sinking through his knees, now smaller then Eddie. Eddie smiles pleased, shuffling closer to Richie. They’re barely able to maintain eye contact in this position, even less as Eddie shambles forward more and covers Richie’s eyes with his hands.

Eddie’s hand are calloused and divided with firm lines, ragged and coarse. His palms are clammy, slipping from Richie’s head and skimming back up. Their figures are so close that Richie can smell Eddie’s parfum, rendering him breathless and with nothing to say.

‘Don’t worry,’ Eddie chaffs. ‘I’m not gonna play leg rack with you. I’ll show you something now okay?’

‘Okay.’ The proximity is too much not to mess with Richie, and he cringes at how obvious he’s being His voice is breathy, he can’t make a joke, and he leans his head into Eddie’s hand. Touch starved and helplessly in love.

Eddie guides him to the balcony door, Richie still bucked under his request, the wind notifying Richie to the change of scenery. The clicking his tongue tells Richie he has to transcend over the threshold with a larger step.

‘I’m going to remove my hand now. Let me explain before you say anything.’

Richie squints against the newfound bright light, blinking heavily before his eyes finally focus on what’s in front of him.

‘Ben crafted the box with cedar wood, and I painted it. I figured yellow was a good color because, I mean, your personality is so yellow. Sparkly and all that shit.’

The box in question, low and behold and not at all what Richie conquered up in his mind about what this could be, is a brand new allotment, yellow covered paint with soil filled to the brim. It’s on Eddie’s compact balcony, taking up most of the space so that nothing else is able to fit on there.

‘Eddie, what?’

‘Before you say anything hear me out. You were so fucking sad Richie and Victoria told me that you rejected the idea of rebuilding one so,’ Eddie scratches the back of his head, ‘I had to do something.’

‘Eds I-.’

‘And we can always move it to your apartment if you’d rather it be situated there. I just couldn’t really plant it in your backyard without you knowing so and it being a suprise. You hate it, do you?’

Richie can’t describe how much he adores it. The frame is cold to the touch, but Richie is warm on the feeling of utter devotion Eddie has given him. He’s never had that before, or rather, he’s never had that before with someone he didn’t know for his entire life.

With Eddie it comes natural, there’s an ease between them that transformed out of nowhere but is there to stay, comforting like a stuffed animal is for a child that’s having nightmare. He flicks on a patch of dried up paint, Eddie’s hip checking his to get him to stop. They turn to stare at the other.

‘You put in all that effort? For me?’

‘Yeah, but if I overstepped then I’m truly fucking sorry. This was something between you and your mom and I should have left it the way it was But Richie, you sell yourself short at every turn. You loved to do this and I couldn’t let one small inconvenience ruin it for you.’

It’s a friend thing, it’s simply a friendly gesture, Richie’s understanding of that, but Eddie’s opening up. He’s showing Richie a side of him that doesn’t appear very often, and Richie is enthralled with the way Eddie parts his lips ever so slightly as he turns nervous, and the way his brow smooths out when he’s truly proud of something.

Eddie smiles, hesitant like there’s any way Richie will be mad at him for doing this, and Richie loses all sense of preservation. He ducks, arms stiff by his side, head tilted to the left, lips upon Eddie’s.

There are no fireworks as some movies try to convince it’s viewers. It isn’t even that good to begin with. An underlaying agita stops the kiss from going smooth and relaxed the way Richie thought it was supposed to be, but then he’s remembering that’s because he’s kissing Eddie, and he ruined any chance of a platonic relationship with him forever.

The wet squelch of lips breaking apart pries apart the bout on the awareness, and all the fear Richie hid releases.

‘Shit Eddie I’m so sorry. I-‘

‘Do it again.’

‘What?’

‘I said, fuck never mind. I gotta do all the work myself.’ Eddie kisses him again with the gentleness of holding porcelain, while pushing Richie softly against the window of the balcony. A car honk breaks their shield of bliss, causes Eddie’s eyes to fiddle and look to see if anyone was watching them. Richie chuckles fidgety, pulling away from the kiss and resting his head against the hard surface, heaving in a breath. Never had he considered this to be a possibility, of Eddie being such a good kisser, and for kissing him in the first place.

‘Holy shit.’

‘We should take this inside’, Eddie proclaims, tugging Richie inside and only pecking his lips once the window is shut firmly behind them. ‘Fuck, do you wanna take this to the couch?’

Richie nods, walking backwards with his arms surrounding Eddie, detaching only once Eddie pushes his weigh forward and lets him tumble over the edge of the seat. Dazed and in disbelieve, Richie squeezes his eyes shut and hopes that this isn’t a figment of a dream.

When Eddie thinks Richie isn’t looking, he checks the balcony again, and shuts the curtains abrasively. Then he address Richie. ‘Alright, where were we?’

\---

It becomes a thing. They become a thing. An item where they are both monogamous towards the other and revel in each other’s presence. Richie is ecstatic, if not a little baffled that he’s granted this with Eddie Kaspbrak, and he’s not afraid to withhold that information from Eddie. Years of pent up romantic gestures and affectionate touches Richie denied himself bubble over the threshold, gritty, open and captivating. His hidden romance manifests itself in trial- and error gestures, some that are a success in Eddie’s book, and others not quite.

‘Richard Tozier, why in the ever living fuck are there green branches in my bath?’ 

‘That’s the rosemary baby,’ Richie sings back to him, grinning exorbitant. Eddie reemerges in his silken bathrobe, one eyebrow cocked up in a dare, water dripping from the hand he scooped in the water for evidence.

‘Yes, thank you Richie, I got that far. What I meant was why is it in our bathtub soiling all the efforts I put into cleaning it spot free?’

‘Funny you should ask Eduardo.’

‘Not my name.’

‘Eds, baby’, Eddie blushes undignified at the new nickname and is stunned momentarily, letting Richie go on without a fuss. ‘I read that rosemary helps alleviates stress and I wanted to try it out.’

‘That does not mean to sprinkle actual rosemary stems in our bathtub Richard. The time and effort I’m going to spend in rinsing those fucking things out are not nearly worth it.’

‘What else am I supposed to throw in there? Oils are not nearly as good as the real thing.’

Eddie sighs exaggerating, eyes flitted towards the sky. ‘Where did you even get it? I thought the sprouting time for rosemary was still two weeks away?’

‘It is, but I went to the store and bought some.’ Richie’s voice tints a bit sad. ‘I wish I could have used freshly plucked ones, but hey, good things can come in plastic packages too. Your mom for example.‘

‘Richie.. They’ll grow back soon enough’, Eddie shuffles over seeing straight through Richie’s façade, one hand holding the bathrobe closed while the other swipes away Richie’s hair away from his eyes, lingering a kiss on his forehead.

‘I’m sorry for causing you more labor Eds, I thought it was a fun idea.’

‘It is, I’m sorry for being so prissy. Myra’s been chasing me around with divorce lawyers and whatnot and it’s doing my head in. But,’ he corrects,’ I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. Join me?’

Richie beams and nods, ghosting his fingers between Eddie who bridges the distances and tightens them, leading them towards the bathroom. The steam is clogging up their mirrors, smudging the once perfectly cleaned glass. Richie cringes at the sight. Clearly, when he was forming the idea, he didn’t consider the technicalities, but only sought out the heartfelt details. His intent, backfiring tremendously, was to black out any and all distractions that Eddie’s been towing with him for the past three weeks.

Myra isn’t ready to let her ex-husband go, devising petty accusations and excuses to drag out the divorce as long as possible. Her first tactic was to lure Eddie in by crying on the phone for hours, beseeching him to renaissance their marriage.

She pleaded that she would forgive him for his mishap and his experimenting with men, all for the normality of their daily life. Eddie always calmed her down on the phone, getting roped into hours of no progress being made except adding stress lines, sending Richie apologetic glances, and Richie never blamed him for it. Her behavior wasn’t unexpected or abnormal, as she did lose her husband and was grieving for her failed marriage after all. Once she concluded that begging was getting her nowhere, the threats started. Richie had less tolerance for those.

She’d yell and screech about the horrible mistakes Eddie was transcending into, and how he would amount to nothing without her guidance. Insulting and demeaning words were thrown around like ‘fag’ or ‘leech’, jeopardizing all the progress in self-image Eddie had, but he was stronger than her, and pulled through all the insulting languages. Eventually, he stopped granting her answers and filed a motion for a lawyer to serve up the divorce papers.

No matter how much Myra fussed at this point, it was something for his attorney to deal with, but from time to time, Eddie couldn’t help himself and asked to be informed by his lawyer what Myra had been claiming. It never ended well for him. So as Eddie neglected to get back to Richie about what to order for dinner, the usual highlight of the days Eddie had a meeting on, Richie knew that it was another bad day for him, and set out to find something that could prevent the fallout. 

The aroma of rosemary shudders the bathroom and wafts in their faces, prickling up their nostrils just a side of too much.

The branches are proportionally a lot more than Richie had accounted for, when he’d dumped the whole basket of it in without a second glance. Eddie inhaled deeply, to pretend he doesn’t mind the smell, but his nose wrinkles and he flicks his tongue, tasting the herb without actually eating it. ‘This did not go as planned.’

‘Cleary. I would hope your incentive going into to this was not to suffocate me with rosemary.’

‘Now that you mentioned it, I almost forgot about my masterplan leading up to me tricking you here and killing you without any trace to the body.’

‘Very funny Rich’, Eddie says as his disposes of his clothes in the washing bin and jerks on Richie’s t-shirt to get him to do the same. His clothes disappear neatly folded, something Richie finds an absolute waste of time to do, and he bends to undo his trouser before changing his mind and heightening on his tip toes. He presses his lips to Richie’s ear, whispering; ‘if anyone is killing anyone here, it’ll be me.’

Richie shivers, not a direct cause of the words but rather the intonation, clumsily hauling his pants of and slipping on the condensation that’s settling in the bathroom. Eddie sprints for him, but Richie’s managed to stabilizes himself thanks to the proximity of the sink, and glares at the floor.

‘For a murderer you’re pretty obliging.’

‘All a roes of my plan to get you to trust me.’

‘Eddie Spagheddie, you won’t get away with this.’

‘Yes I will. The jury will take one glance at my bathroom and conclude it’s self-defense.’

Eddie toes around the edge of the bathtub, dipping his foot in just a tiny bit to gauge the temperature. Lukewarm at best, and Eddie’s foot is flooded with little branches as it emerges out of the water.

Richie smiles sheepishly, enrolling the towel from the hang rack and handing it to Eddie whose face looked pinched, even with the conscious effort he’s providing on impartial his face.

‘Maybe we could unplug the bath stopper? Let some of the water and branches out and fill it up with warmer water?’

‘Absolutely fucking not. On average a bath takes up 50 gallons of water dumbass. 50, that’s 25 gallons more than a shower. That’s not ecofriendly or efficient at all. Our earth is already in the midst of glissading towards global warming and we are not speeding the process along by filling two bathtubs in the same day. And don’t get me started on the clogs that all the rosemary can cause if we send it down the drain. It’ll get stuck in the sewers and we’ll have to call a plumber and I hate inviting people I don’t know.’ Eddie shakes his head viciously, hand swerving through the air. ‘No we’re taking a shed and we’re going to fish all of it out before unplugging the bath.’

‘Okay’, Richie vehemently agrees, brain catching up to the word vomit a beat behind, but retracting the gist of it anyway. ‘Whatever you say babe.’

Eddie deflates, hands sinking from his hips back besides his body. ‘I’m sorry, I’m supposed to unspool right now and all I’m doing is ruining your hard work.’

‘I wouldn’t call it hard work dude, it was literally nothing.’

‘Yeah but you dedicated your time to this. The least I could do is enjoy it. Savoring the feeling of 200.000 bacteria’s per square inch and contracting a staph infection.’

‘Fuck Eddie I’m an idiot. I should have thought this through.’ Eddie trusted Richie enough to inform him all about his quirks and their origin, and then Richie has to fuck up that trust because he’s so stupidly blind in love he can’t think straight.

‘Rich none of this is your fault. For fucking once you’re not the idiot here.’ Eddie point to himself with a nicked brow. ‘Look, if you want, we can still take a bath together, I’ll just shower after.’

‘Or’, Richie proposes, ‘I can get a head start on cleaning the bathtub while booking us reservations for the new Chinese place down the block, get some of that chocolate chip ice cream you’re addicted too and pick us a movie to watch? What do you say Eds?’

‘That’s… pretty much the perfect night and I would love to spend it with you.’ Eddie steps forward, tucking his head under Richie’s to hide his rosy cheeks and to bask in the plans that are yet to come. Richie’s hand begins to swipe up and down his back.

‘Great, get ready and I’ll get started.’ Richie kisses him deeply, hoping it conveys the apologize his mouth can’t form. ‘Say you love me so I can say ‘I know’ back and wear that t-shirt you hate so much to drive home the joke.’

‘I will break up with you and just to hurt you more I’ll fight to bring the allotment with me.’

‘No you won’t’, Richie yells back cheerful, digging in his closet to find said Darth Vader shirt the drives Eddie crazy with.

‘No I fucking won’t.’

So yeah, their thing isn’t perfect. A lot of things about their personalities are still out in the open, like how Richie didn’t know that Eddie hates baths and never utilizes them, or that Richie is allergic to truthful words of affection because the rejection hangs above him like the sword of Damocles. 

They haven’t rounded up to addressing what exactly they are even, boyfriends or lovers or if they even are in an official relationship, but this is good enough for Richie. As long as it’s good for Eddie too, Richie thinks he’s exactly where he needs to be.

\-----

For Richie, his relationships are comparable to learning how to ride a bike without training wheels. There’s a moment where everything is terrifying, and you’re convinced you’re about to fall and slice open you head, but then you steady yourself and the feeling of growing up and rising to independence is exhilarating.

With his relationship count rounded up to an unspectacular two, Richie isn’t an expert, but in both of his relationships the biggest holdback was the admittance of his romantic feelings, that and the fact that he was still in the closet at both times. And that’s not to say everything post admittance goes peachy, but telling his significant other and the rest of his close family and friends is to him the barrier between fash and peace. Several hints are pointing out Eddie does not see it in the same way.

Ben and Mike know about Richie and Eddie being in a relationship, as do Bev, Stan, Bill and Richie’s sister, but it’s evident that Eddie remains apprehensive about showing their faces in public. It’s not obvious to Richie at first, as their opposite schedules don’t align, with Eddie working during the day and Richie performing at night, and thus shopping together, or holding a date night outside of Eddie’s apartment is something they have yet to indulge in.

Richie’s no longer forced to leave the house on Saturdays either, as the allotment remains placed on Eddie’s balcony, but he does go over to help his sister every now and again. Eddie never asks to go with him, and Richie never forces him too. He figures it’s Eddie sleeping in on his days off or inspecting the apartment to ensure Richie did a good job of cleaning up.

The reason the hesitancy goes unnoticed for such an extended period of time, is because Eddie shows so much interests and devotion into every other aspects of their lives together. He listens intensely whenever Richie rambles about the herbs and how to maintain them, even buying gloves to wear so he can help inverting the soil. Eddie Kaspbrak using his hands, protected or not, to dig in dirt is a huge step for him, and Richie is both filled with pride for him and flustered that his interest are worth broadening your horizon for. Date nights practically take place every night, ranging from movie dates to picknicks and candle lit dinners. Eddie’s clothes have been shifted so there’s room for Richie to add his, and Eddie rolls over to the left side of his bed as an automatic reflex, so Richie can crawl in on the other side. He’s rarely in his own house anymore, but he asks Eddie if he should every night anyway, just in case Eddie would like some alone time. Eddie’s response is always to pull Richie down into a kiss, as if even the implication of him getting annoyed is bizarre.

And yes, Richie is a little put off that he can’t organize an extra special rendezvous, for which he is overflowing with ideas, but he’s simply elated with what he does get to have. Every kiss goodnight and good morning, every lingering touch on the small of the back as they pass each other in the hallway, every headlong gesture like Eddie grabbing Richie’s exact drink of choice without thinking twice about it solidifies Richie’s happiness, makes him settle.

Richie forgets, in all the commotion and this far unseen merit, that the universe is always lurking with a new hurdle, another obstacle that he is to either fight against, or abnegate whilst trying. Bovenkant formulierThis hurdle, popping up out of nowhere, shows itself on a Tuesday before noon.

On this particular Tuesday, Richie is bored. His set is finished and only requires some tweaking that he’s not in the mood to do, his show is only in a week so he doesn’t have to rehearse it yet, and there’s nothing on tv that interest him in the slightest. He sets to plow on the herb garden for an hour, but there’s not a lot to do yet until they start sprouting, so that leaves him with very little to distract him with. It’s Eddie’s turn to do the groceries, but Richie’s going stir crazy and he knows that Eddie will appreciate the reduced workload, so he grabs his coat and goes out to get them himself.

While picking up various vegetables that are on the shopping lists, Richie realizes that he hasn’t cooked anything special for a long time, besides the obvious spaghetti and mac and cheese, and he itches to put his knack for cooking to use. Soba noodle salad with chicken and broccoli sounds delicious, and fits in Eddie’s eating schedule.

Eddie always prepares his meals, clean cut sandwiches belayed with a slice of ham or a non-fat alternative, in the morning before rushing off to work, storing it in his office fridge until his lunch break. He prefers to eat cold food at noon and warm foods at dinner, so his stomach can digest the nutriment in a healthy way before he heads off to sleep. He has his cheat days though, when he hurries home from the office to his apartment with take away and shares the meal while ranting about how stupid and annoying his coworkers are and how he wishes he could stay home with Richie all day.

Those days are the best, because they’re a surprise. Richie’s never aware that Eddie’s going to walk through the door, but as soon as he hears the keys rattling, he pipes up and excitement sparks in his bloodstream. He wants to do the same for Eddie now.

Finding the ingredients isn’t difficult, and neither is the preparation of the dish, though Richie does wing his way through a lot of the spices. Following a recipe is just no fun to him, and he’s had enough practice to determent whether or not something will taste good. The noodle salad get stored in two large plastic bowls, reclused by a lid so nothing gets spilled.

Richie’s never been to Eddie’s workplace before, but he has crossed the building multiple times on his way to Vicky’s shop. It’s a bland, grey building comparted in windows that stretch over the entirety of the wall, that decreases Richie’s mood just by looking at it. The paint is flaked in certain areas and the green flower beds surrounding the construction are dried up because they haven’t been watered down enough. He can’t phantom the idea of Eddie working here every single day, and it makes sense that Eddie was so clammed up at their first meeting. Richie would rather scratch his eyes out than work here every day.

The inside isn’t much better, Richie notes after walking through a glass rotating door to enter, passing a line of people who all look as miserable as the other. The welcoming hall is large, yet there’s only one centerpiece, a bouquet of flowers, to cheer up the entire place, and the walls are white. If Richie was the owner of this building – well the place would go out of business real quick for one- but he’d at least add some level of color and liveliness to the place, instead of the detached and cold interior there is now.

Eddie’s office is on the fifth floor, but Richie’s not positive he’s allowed to go up there without any justification or permission, and the last thing he would want to do is cause a scene at Eddie’s job. So, he does the responsible thing and approaches the receptionist. She can’t be over twenty five years old, but she sits rigidly in her chair like slouching might get her fired, a bored expression plaguing her face. She barely gives him a glance, and beckons’ him closer.

‘Good day sir how may I help you?’

‘Hi, I’m here to see Eddie Kaspbrak?’

The receptionist looks him up and down slowly, taking in his chosen outfit and his unmanned hair. ‘I assume you are not one of his clients?’

‘Nope’, Richie says brightly. ‘I’m just his super-hot sugar daddy here to bring him food.’ He holds up the plastic bag in proof, hoping that the plastic pots don’t fall over in the swinging bag and spill over the sides.

An undignified snort emits from the lady, her shoulders bouldering and covering up her smile behind her hands. ‘For mr Kaspbrak?’

‘I know, I know’, he waves off her concerns, ‘I’m waay above his league.’

She laughs harder, and Richie flashes with pride, loves it when he can improve people’s day by causing them to laugh.

A line forms behind him, it is a fast-paced company and there’s no time for chit chatting around here apparently, so the clerk opens her drawer and snatches a visitors pass. ‘There you go sir, he’s on the fifth floor and should be free at this time. After exiting the elevator turn left, his office finds itself two door down. Would you like me to notify him you have arrived?’

‘No don’t worry about it, that’ll run the surprise.’

‘Alright sir, have a nice day with’, her lips curl up into a smile, but she narrowly avoids laughing again, ‘with mister Kaspbrak.’

‘Will do.’ Richie finger guns at her until the next person stops in front of her desk, and Richie has to figure out how the elevator in this place operates. The door slide open with ease once pressed on the opening button, but thumbing in the correct floor number results in absolutely nothing, and it’s getting humiliating to stand in a lift that’s not moving. He gets help from higher up, in the most non metaphorical way, as the door slide closed and someone on the fifth floor requests the elevator.

The floor numbers slide up and up, and a small opening by the door flashes, the spot where Richie was meant to insert his visiting pass, but was too oblivious to figure it out. It’s fine, Richie reminds himself, no one was there to witness the failure and therefor it didn’t happen. The elevator dings, and Richie slips out before anyone can notice his error.

The second door on the left is closed, but even through that Eddie’s vexed muttering is audible. Richie surges with delight, foolishly caught off guard by the knowledge of what he’s doing. He’s visiting his boyfriend at work, his boyfriend who he loves dearly and who he can be equally romantic and teasingly with.

He knocks professionally and makes an effort to straighten his back the way Eddie’s been begging him to do since they met, altering his voice to resemble that of a high functioning business man.

‘Mister Kaspbrak we are unimpressed with the work reports you’ve displayed these executive months, I am here to discuss this further.’ He can barely contain his giggles as the muttering inside stops dead. In no longer than two seconds, Eddie’s face pops up between the door and stares, body hidden behind the frame and only his head visible, wide eyed and astonished.

‘Richie?’ He hisses, seizing Richie’s arm and pulling him in his office expeditiously. ‘What are you doing here?’

Richie’s mistake is that he assumes that Eddie’s on edge tone stems from a busy day, not from Richie, so the latter obliviously leans in for a kiss.

Eddie steps back, dodging the peck, and stealthy shuts the door with a loud bang, wincing as it ricochets back open. More heedful, he closes the door delicately ‘till it clicks in the lock.

‘Eddie Spaghetti,’ Richie says effrontery, ‘are you that excited to see me? Should I have taken a condom with me?’

‘Richie’, Eddie buzzes, ‘what are you doing here? Did anyone see you?’

‘I brought you lunch. Thought we could eat it together like a cliché date or something?’

Eddie’s face adapts to an ashy grey, flittering uselessly by the door. ‘You didn’t tell me you were going to do that?’

‘Well I only thought of it today after grabbing groceries which, by the way, was on your to do list today, so your welcome Eddie Spagheddie.’ Consternation is starting to sober Richie’s zest as it becomes increasingly clear none of this is causing any amusement in Eddie.

‘Was I not supposed to?’ Richie inquires uncertain. ‘Am I being overzealous?

‘What? No fuck you.’ Eddie replies bristly, stepping forward and seizing hold of Richie’s hands.

It does not matter what Richie’s doing, if Eddie’s hand slides in with his, he loses al focus and directs his attention to the dexterous lines, recognizing the ins and outs of them with his eyes closed.

‘I just have so much work to catch up on I really can’t afford a long break today. I’m sorry. You should take this with you again and we’ll eat it at home tonight?’

A suspicious inkling shivers in the back of Richie’s neck, but he can’t place why he’s experiencing it. ‘Are you sure? Because If I’m not wrong you nearly throttled me last week when I said I hadn’t eaten lunch. You sounded like your mom when she got really in the vibe.’

‘Yeah Rich, I’m sure. I promise I’ll eat something real quick and then tonight we can enjoy it together? As a cliché dinner date then.’

Richie hesitates, because Eddie truly is acting off, but if he says that he’s fine, there’s nothing Richie can do about it at his office. It’ll have to wait until they’re both home.

‘Well I was kind of hoping we could roleplay with me being the shy yet smart and sophisticated intern and you my sexy hot boss showing me all the ropes but I get it. Paperwork is a lot more interesting than that.’

Eddie exhales and rolls his eyes, inconspicuously pressing Richie to the door by a hand on his back. ‘Even if I didn’t have paperwork, I’d still not be willing to try that out, idiot.’

‘Worth a shot.’

The exchange happens so rapid that Richie misses the time to take a good peek at Eddie’s office, but he doesn’t want to annoy him by overextending his stay. Just as he’s about to grip the door handle, a sturdy knock beats on the door, hammering the importance and opening up without a confirmed allowance. Eddie jumps six feet away from Richie, creating a large distance and a way for the door to open without a casualty. 

‘Eddie, do you have the files of the Stevens company?’

The man, no doubt a colleague of Eddie’s, if his fancy suit is based on that assumption, barges in lacking the critical skill of contemplating whether Eddie is busy. He blinks in surprise when he spots Richie in the room, dragging his eyes away from him to Eddie, who frolics with the edges of his sleeve.

‘Excuse me, I had no idea you were handling a client.’

‘No, I’m not. This is,’ he gestures weakly at Richie, struggling to find the words to speak. ‘My friend Richie.’

Richie gulps, suddenly too big for his body. He can sense the way his shoulders cave in on him, attempting to appear smaller to the best of his abilities. Eddie said Richie was his friend. He didn’t say boyfriend, or anything resembling that. His role in Eddie’s life is reduced to the status of friend.

Eddie enforces eye contact, begging Richie to await his explanation, like he isn’t nailed shut to the ground with embarrassment already. It’s alright, Richie convinces himself, it accosts to nothing, maybe this is his boss or that one homophobic coworker every workplace seems to hire.

Except it does, as Eddie troops to his desk to retrieve the files and directs Richie’s gaze to the neatly pictures of Myra and Eddie mid embrace on their honeymoon, an orange sunset glowing up the photo with a romantic vibe.

Richie swallows back bile as the infuriating flames of despair cascade from the top of his head all the way down to his toes, a passerby to the best thing in his life blowing away with the winds of a confession. That’s what this all is in retrospect. A confession to tear down Richie’s idea of what their connection was. 

Eddie scrambles around in his desk, tossing aside multiple papers and letting them dwindle to the floor, and Richie stand there, in a true idiot style, and waits for the sign that he’s allowed to leave.

‘Oh, well nice to meet you man’, the coworker says, and he sounds very nice and friendly, but Richie’s not particularly in the mood for chit chat. The image of Myra on Eddie’s desk haunts him and ingrained their image in his eye sockets.

‘You too’, Richie says back, devoiced of any humor in his words, and relinquishing the jab about the man’s ridiculous expensive shoes that’s been building up since he first laid eyes on them.

‘Here you go.’ Eddie shoves the folder in the man’s hand, voice unsteady and slightly hysterical. ‘I didn’t get to finish all of it but it’s close.’

‘Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind. Oh, I almost forgot. You should take your wife with you to next week’s office retreat. It’ll be nice to catch up.’

‘I-‘ Eddie gulps. ‘I’ll ask her.’

‘You say that every time, at least try this time.’ The man teases and walks out with the new found documents in his hand, discarding the absolute chaos situation he inadvertently set in motion and left behind.

Richie needs to find the nearest trashcan to throw up in.

‘Please listen to me before you say anything.’ Eddie pleads, stepping closer until he’s within arm reach, but the space between them has never looked so uncrossable.

‘I- I’ll leave this here.’ Richie jiggles the plastic bags, carefully putting it down of to the side where it can’t be stomped on. ‘Hey it’s fine Eds’, Richie assures after dodging away from Eddie’s fingertips touching his skin. ‘I’ll always have your mom to fall back on.’

Two mom jokes in the same hour are not quality content, but Richie’s lament and can’t come up with better ways to disguise his emotions. ‘Rain check on dinner?’ By the time Eddie manages to pick his tongue off of the ground, Richie has scurried away.

\----

That night, Richie crawls under the covers of his own bed, defeated and hurt. Eddie calls him three times, but he declines the calls without hesitation. The numerous text messages all get deleted without being read, and his only retaliation is to tell Eddie he’s fine and that he’s going to stay at his place for the night. If he objects to that, Richie is unaware, because he shuts off his phone right after.

His bed is uncomfortably cold, now he has no one attached to his back during sleep. The bed is three feet big, but it might as well be an endless amount of empty space. After hours of fossicking around, Richie ceases his attempts of a good night sleep, and heads out towards his couch to scroll between various television channels. He lands on a hallmark movie, his secret guilty pleasure that he roped Eddie into as well, chattering and commenting on the sheer ridiculousness of the actions portrayed. He tosses his opinion in now too, but obtains nothing back.

Where Eddie would have put his two cents in, there’s nothing but silence. Richie snaps his mouth shut, hating that he’s confronted about Eddie in such mundane ways, and doesn’t fight it as his mind travels back to the events.

Richie isn’t mad per say, he understands to a certain degree what Eddie’s mindset is. He hasn’t been savvy at every point in his life either, in particular during his teenage years, but that doesn’t take away the stinging pains of being blind sighted.

He hates the dejection heavying his limbs and the way it closes him off from the people around him, how much energy it tapes to sprout jokes and pretend that everything is okay. Unlike Eddie, who snaps once backed into a wall, Richie tries to disappear completely, no laughs or chuckles but quiet to pretend he’s not even there, and will lock himself away from the world if it meant avoiding the prying and concerned eyes from those around him.

As much as going back to his own apartment is for the best interest of Richie, It’s also a benefit for Eddie. If they were to be around each other, Eddie would, regardless of Richie’s best intentions, see that he’s upset. Eddie would then feel guilty and, in trying to appease Richie, do whatever it takes for them to make up. The last thing Eddie needs right now is to be around someone who’s upset for a choice he made. He’s finally removed every bad and mean spirited entity from his life, and Richie is not about to get in the way of that because his vacuous brain.

His emotions are astray and until he grips them again, it’s best for him to be alone. The best isn’t always what you‘d opt for, but it’s necessary. That’s why he dials the volume louder, pouring himself a glass of whiskey he’d been gifted from a talk show host and settles in, doing his best to ignore the parts of his brain and heart that ream at him to go back to Eddie’s house this second and smooth the frails.

‘Another great night.’ He mutters sadly and swallows a huge gulp of the whiskey. 

\----- Bovenkant formulier

Richie resilience, or the crumbled remnants of what it should be, caves a week in. A home delivery that contains spaghetti with a piece of paper taped to the outsides that reads: ‘from one spagheddie to another. Please call me’, breaks him open, does him in, cracks his ribs with the pit of despair and the longing for the man that he, if he dares to say it, loves. It’s not that Richie doesn’t want to talk to Eddie at all, it’s just that he wants the problem to be whisked away, come the haze of a fun night out that resounders a hung over.

The prospect of an full conversation during which feelings and the recent events should be smoothed over is something miles outside of his comfort zone. Richie isn’t a talk things out type of guy, neither is he someone who vocalizes it when something bothers him, but this is his relationship with Eddie. This is the first time in all of Richie’s relationships that he’s had to resolve an issue, since he’s never had the illusion before that it was meant to last. If a disagreement broke out, the guy would leave and abandon ship with any lingering feelings.

Richie’s attachment to Eddie is different, and Richie is terrified that he’s going to lose him if he doesn’t at least engage in a conversation and actively try to sort things out.

The time and space apart from Eddie, and by extension the time to introspect, has Richie realized how wrong and uncalled for his behavior was. In Eddie’s office Richie saw things solely from his own pint of view, in a selfish matter, focusing on nothing but his own insecurity and how it appeared that Eddie was ashamed of him. He took it personal and let it hit him harden than it should have. In a way, he copied Eddie’s mom and ex-wife, in getting angry for the way Eddie chose to portray himself at his job, by his own accord. By all means, Eddie is allowed to do whatever he wants and chooses anywhere and anytime.

Richie is deeply conscience-stricken of baring the smallest resemblance with those two witches. It’s his personal mission now to, besides hopefully save their connection, ensure Eddie understands that Richie was in the wrong, and not him. He prays to a God he’s never believed in that he hasn’t fucked things up beyond repair.

He debates on notifying Eddie that he’s on his way, but that seems weird somehow, like it’s a formal event that needs preparation. He’s not sure what the established rules are for going over to an, potentional ex-, lover, after a fight, but he’s going to try his best to not fuck it up.

In weighing his option on how to act he decides to behave as natural as possible, like he isn’t totally reappearing out of the blue, just walking through the door like it’s a normal day. Eddie is, who would have guessed, extremely peculiar in term of the safety of his home, and locks the door at all times, including when he himself is in the house.

Richie knows where he hides a spare however, in his mailbox, just within reach of his fingertips in case he should need them. He never said it with so many words, but Richie’s convinced he put it there for Richie’s sake.

On Wednesday, a day that Eddie normally works on thus giving Richie time to come up with and create a romantic gesture, Richie scours the keys from the mailbox, clenches them in his hand and opens the door, banning all further overthinking. If he stops and evaluates what he’s doing, he’ll back out, afraid and intimidated, and that just won’t do.

The first thing Richie detects is the lack of cleaning product scent. Eddie squanders at least two bottles of mister clean every time he scrubs, so Richie has become accustomed to the strong and imposing smell as a third housemate. It’s unsettling in the way it would be unsettling to see Stan in sweats, or to be snapped at from Ben, it’s weird and doesn’t fit at all.

It isn’t as imposingly quiet either, the way it is after Richie wakes up and Eddie has left for work. In fact, there are loud banging sounds rising from behind the terras door leading to the balcony. Another loud bang and Richie jumps, reaching for the very first things he clamps around, it happens to be a hard cover book, and outstretches it towards the sounds in protection.

‘Fucking shit, you piece of shit let’s go.’

The words, fierce in it’s meaning, calm Richie from his original spook. It’s just Eddie, though that’s also a bit weird considering he’s supposed to be at work. Richie can rest easy now that he’s not about to be a part of a burglary.

Eddie being the one home is not enough to calm him down completely, as his heart races under a different kind of stress.

The adult censored cursing leads him to the balcony, as he walks past a bunch of gardening magazines. Weird, as they didn’t come from Richie. He’s psychin himself up, reciting his practiced speech on apologies he’d chewed up, until he spots Eddie, and the words dissolve on his tongue. In plain sunlight, with a stupid garden hat on and sunscreen applied in a thick white layer on his nose, Eddie is rummaging in the dirt of Richie’s allotment, several left handed gloves thrown over the side, his face beet red.

‘Getting rid of my stuff already?’

Eddie slams his head against the sliding window, cursing a storm and rubbing the pain spot on the back of his head, alarmed by the person he hadn’t noticed nearing him. ‘Mother fucker’

‘I sure am’, Richie can’t help himself. Jabbing with Eddie is as easy as breathing, and Eddie being able to give back as much as he takes is part of the reason Richie fell for him in the first place.

‘Richie’, Eddie says, sliding the comment about his mom aside. He gapes at Richie, the corners of his mouth quirking up. ‘I can’t believe you came back. Wait, how did you get in here anyway?’

‘I mission impossible’d it Eds, I stealthy broke in.’

Eddie’s eyes sink to Richie’s hands, still holding the keys. ‘Sure thing Rich. Am I mistaken or did you rip a hamstring after merely bending down the other day?’

He shuts his mouth, the silence turning impeccable, loaded with the hardships only known to those who’ve experienced a true heartbreak. Richie has had many of those, and refuses to let this one become another.

‘Sorry if I should’ve knocked or something.’

‘No Rich, of course not. You’re welcome here always. I’m glad you came’, Eddie promises smiling innocently.

‘Except for when you’re in the shower am I right?’ Richie winked, not exactly receiving the reaction he’d hoped for when all Eddie does is look towards the herb garden and motions him closer. Following his command, Richie does approach, but ensures there’s enough space between them to keep Eddie comfortable.

‘Yeah I deserved that one, I set that one up.’ Eddie sighs but smiles simultaneously, scraping a used glove of the floor and prodding with it in the soil of the allotment. ‘I can’t believe I invested so long in my plan only for it to fail because you showed up early.’ 

‘Euh, I’m sorry?’

‘Why are you apologizing? You don’t even know what I was trying to do?’

‘Nope, but I’ve always been a little clueless, and my mama always taught me that it’s never right for my dearest to eat the humble pie first.’

‘Can you stop talking in a southern accent? It’s creeping me out. Jesus shit’, Eddie curses as his glove slips off and accidently exposes his hand to the turf. 

Richie holds up his hands in surrender, automatically reaching forward to get Eddie’s hand out of the way but stopping in the middle, not convinced that Eddie would allow Richie to touch him.

‘Not that seeing you ace my hobby isn’t insanely hot, but Eduardo what are you doing?’

‘I was trying to rearrange the seeds and have it spell out I love you or something but it’s not fucking working. I assumed that kernels would be bigger but they’re these teeny tiny little fuckers that you can’t place any way you want at all. The one time I try to do something romantic and it backfires on me.’ He contorts his eyebrow, staring at Richie with a side eyed, while Richie waits for the punch line to drop or to hear Eddie say he was just messing with him. When nothing happens, Richie doubles over in laughter, snorting like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Perhaps it is. 

‘Eddie, you do know that impossible right?’

‘I fucking guess so. Do you have any idea how hard I tried to get this to work? It’s like the fuckers are laughing straight in my face.’

‘Babe, they’re herbs, they don’t have a conscious.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ Eddie sounding so serious breaks Richie, who again starts howling in amusement. Eddie burns holes in his face, until he no longer can hold out either and starts laughing as well. ‘Holy shit I’m the idiot here now aren’t I?’

‘I hate to break it to you, but yes you most certainly are.’

Eddie steps closer to him, bumping their shoulders and snickering out the remnants of mirth. All at once, the two make eye contact and stop laughing, staring a tad too long for it to be comfortable.

‘Look Eds-‘

‘Richie shut up for five minutes to let me say what I want to say and then I’ll gladly listen to you all night okay?’ Eddie interrupts, jagged to explain himself. He’s adamant in not letting Richie cut in between, or not letting him start, and for all Richie is eager to proclaim his guilt, he’s also agoged to listen to Eddie, and knowledgeable of how Eddie can work himself up over something if he doesn’t get it all out of his system. So Richie nods and tries to look as unconcerned as he can muster.

‘I’m sorry. I wish I could offer you something different, better, but it all boils down to sorry anyway. I’m sorry for not telling my coworkers about us and I’m sorry for giving you the idea that I wasn’t hundred percent on board with our relationship. I am, it’s just that- fuck.’ Eddie inhales deeply, pushing back his hair. Richie’s too invested to interrupt him or to grant him a break, he’s keen to see where Eddie’s monologue is going to lead.

‘I kept rationalizing keeping things a secret. My mom used to say that gay men were spreading their disease all over town by displaying affection, and that they infected anything they touched so we should stay clear of them. Then one day I caught my math teacher holding hands with his boyfriend when they assumed no one was there. My mom got called in by him some time later to discuss my grades and she shook his hands still, like he wasn’t sick at all. I was so scared for days after that she was going to die because I hadn’t told her about my teacher, but she never even coughed or sneezed.’

Not for the first time, Richie wished he could have grown up with Eddie, so that he could have tried his damn hardest to stop Sonia Kaspbrak from traumatizing him. Her nefarious behavior and life philosophy has done more damage to the life of her son than any illness could possibly, and Richie questions whether she knew it and steadied on with it for her own benefit. 

‘But then she showed me a letter my aunt had apparently send her from out of state, about how a friend of hers died as she touched a doorknob behind a gay man. Somehow my brain conjured up that my mom didn’t get sick because no one knew my teacher was gay, and that because no one knew he couldn’t transfer the disease. Rich, I’m so fucking sorry. I know how stupid that sounds but it’s truly what I was thinking.’

‘Eds stop-‘, Richie interrupted him, jolting Eddie’s shoulder gently while bending to initiate direct eye contact. ‘You’re not the one in the wrong here.’

Eddie shakes his head, to clear out his judgement or to argue, Richie is unsure, but Richie nods to back up his words.

‘How is any of this your fault Richie?’

‘Because I should have never tried to make you feel guilty for not coming out yet. You need to able to make that decision on your own time and I tried to manipulate you into doing it sooner. Which also makes me the biggest hypocrite by the way because I hid my sexuality for so long my middle name might as well have been closet.’

It’s relieving to finally say the word cramped up in his brain out loud, like a bird that’s set free and flies over to the horizon. He means everything he says.

‘But how can I expect you to stick it out with me when I’m not ready yet? I don’t want to put you through that.’

‘Eds, I was pining after you when I thought you were still married and unobtainable for entirety, do you honestly think I won’t wait just because the outside world has to be kept in the dark for a little while longer? I get it, once this whole thing comes out you’re going to be caught up in a whirlwind storm, since you’re dating the Trashmouth Tozier.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself, no one cares about a mediocre, unhealthy, old comedian’s love life.’

‘Hey, I’ll have you know I once has to sneak out the back to escape paparazzi after a concert I attended with Bev. The engagement rumors were huge.’

Eddie laughs, resting one of his palms against Richie stubble and swooping his thumb back and forth. Richie’s a little fearful that he can detect the blood rush to his cheeks.

‘Really, I’m sorry for causing us these shitty few days. Will you f-forgive me?’ Richie asks, voice breaking on the word forgive.

‘There’s nothing to forgive you Rich, will you forgive me? And before you say that I didn’t do anything wrong, I did. Maybe not about the not being out yet, but I shouldn’t have kept my divorce a secret. I told everyone as soon as you left, and I’m so glad I did, but I was scared I was already too late.’ Eddie convicts, both thumbs holding Richie is place so there’s no way he can avoid the truthful look in Eddie’s eyes.

‘Yeah, I guess that did sting a bit, but I have done things I’m not proud of either trying to hide my secret. Like this one time I hid in someone’s bathtub while their roommates brushed their teeth right beside the shower curtain because I had slept in later then expected. I forgive you Eds. See this as a sort of down payment on all the stupid shit I’m gonna pull and you have to forgive me for.’

With a laugh, Eddie pushes Richie backward before pulling him in by the collar of his shirt. ‘Kiss me you idiot’, he hums lovingly, nose bumping into Richie’s before slotting so their mouths fit together and they can share the sentiment. Relief is prominent in the relaxed way of their movement, but the most prominent emotion is love, pure and radiant love.

‘Hey Rich?’ Eddie outbraves, faces close enough to breath the same air. A cat jumps out of one chair to the other, Eddie’s old neighbor arises with a cup of tea in her hand, and two kids are screaming at the other in a playful manner, but Richie and Eddie don’t pay it any notice. They’re engrossed with one another.

‘Yeah?’

‘I love you.’

‘Hey Eds? I love you too.’

**Author's Note:**

> Please validate me with comments lmao


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